HAVANA, Cuba -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered on Tuesday to help needy Americans with cheap supplies of gasoline, according to a Reuters report.
Venezuela could supply gasoline to Americans at half the price they now pay if intermediaries were cut out, he said. We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States, Chavez told reporters at the end of a visit to Communist-run Cuba.
He did not say how Venezuela would go about providing gasoline to poor communities. Venezuelan state [image-nocss] oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) owns CITGO, which has approximately 14,000 gas stations in the United States.
The offer may sound attractive to Americans feeling pinched by rising prices at the pump, but not to the U.S. government, which sees Chavez as a left-wing troublemaker in Latin America.
Gasoline is cheaper than mineral water in oil-producing Venezuela, where consumers can fill their tanks for less than $2. Average gasoline prices have risen to $2.61 a gallon in the United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Chavez said Venezuela could supply gasoline to Americans at half the price they now pay if intermediaries who speculated...and exploited consumers were cut out.
David McCollum, a spokesperson for Houston-based CITGO, referred all inquiries on the matter to regional consulates. The voicemail box of Venezuela's consulate in Chicago was full when CSP called. CSP also tried to contact officials in Caracas, at PDVSA headquarters. Representatives there did not respond by presstime.
The offer comes just days after evangelist Pat Robertson's controversial remarkfor which he has apologizedthat the United States should assassinate Chavez.
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