Venezuela's strike heads to gas pump

It's midnight in the city center, and Gerald Peña has been in line for half an hour. He's inching closer to the gas pumps, but estimates it will take another 15 minutes before he is able to fill up his rusty hatchback.

"In the afternoon, it was worse," he says, leaning out the driver's side window. "It was taking three hours to get gas." So, Mr. Peña waited in line while most Caracans slept.

Here in the world's fifth-largest oil producer, supplies of gas, food, cash - and patience - are running low. More than two weeks into a national strike aimed at ousting President Hugo Chávez, people here are growing desperate. Venezuela is a nation grinding to a halt.

American consumers, too, are just beginning to feel the pinch because it takes a week for oil tankers from here to reach the United States, which imports some 13 percent of its oil from here. (In recent days, the cost of crude oil futures has topped $31 a barrel). But analysts say a protracted strike will bring higher prices at the pump, and a greater reliance on Middle East supplies at a time when a war with Iraq could take even more oil out of production.

"There has been a very slow price reaction, that's true," says Sarah Emerson, managing director of Energy Security Analysis in Wakefield, Mass. "But the disruption will become increasingly serious in the next two or three weeks as we begin to look for alternative supplies and at strategic reserves."

Before the strike, Venezuela was producing about 3 million barrels a day, 12 to 15 percent of the OPEC output. Currently, it is producing less than 400,000 barrels per day.

"That's a significant problem for the oil supply all over the world," says Fernando Martínez, Venezuela's former transport minister, now in business for himself in Caracas. "And it's especially critical at this moment, with the world's concerns over Iraq."

Other members of the Organization of American States (OAS) have offered to make up Venezuela's canceled petroleum deliveries to foreign clients. And the US Energy Department approved requests this week from several oil companies to delay delivery of crude oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

For his part, President Chávez is attempting to restart idle oil refineries while fighting for his political career. Experts say that without the support of the oil industry - considered the pride of Venezuela - Chávez is in deep trouble.

In a rambling speech yesterday, Chávez vowed to fire more of the "coup-plotting oil elites" who are leading the shutdown of the government's oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).

Chávez's comments came hours after the Supreme Court ordered the government to relinquish military control of the capital city's police force, which the military has had since Nov. 16, and return control to anti-Chávez Mayor Alfredo Pena.

But the strike at PDVSA is the key. PDVSA produces 87 percent of the country's oil and gas, and accounts for 70 percent of the government's revenues.

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