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Experts warned on Monday that Venezuela would lose the United States oil market if Iraq is defeated in the US-led war.
"Iraq will have the capacity to become the most important supplier to the US hydrocarbon market with a potential that may reach up to 9 million barrels of oil perday," an expert was quoted by the El Nacional daily as saying on Monday.
Ciro Izarra, former manager of the International Trade Department of PDVSA, the Venezuelan state-run petroleum company, said Iraq had been, in the last five to six years, the greatest competitor to Venezuela in the US market.
Izarra said that in recent months the United States had acquired somewhere between 500,000 and 600,000 barrels per day from the oil fields near the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
PDVSA Marketing Department ex-manager, Luis Echeverria, emphasized that Iraq has the second largest crude reserves worldwide, just behind Saudi Arabia.
If the United States successfully ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Venezuelan oil exports to the United States would be endangered, he added.
"As for the recent behavior of the market, there existed the impression that the conflict was going to be a short one. Thus, the crude supply would not be affected; yet there was a downward revision in the market." Echeverria said.
(Xinhua News Agency April 1, 2003)
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