[NYTr] Chavez Proposes Venez-Cuba Gas Pipeline

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Bloomberg - August 11, 2007
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=avERbTXiz2J8

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez Proposes Gas Pipeline to Cuba

By Steven Bodzin

Venezuela President Hugo Chavez supports constructing a natural gas
pipeline beneath the Caribbean to supply neighboring islands and Cuba,
and possibly extending to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

Chavez called for the Venezuela-to-Caribbean pipeline in a speech today
to the PetroCaribe summit, a gathering in Caracas of energy ministers
and heads of state from the region. The speech was broadcast on
Venezuelan state television.

The proposal for what he called a ``Great Trans-Caribbean Gas
Pipeline'' comes just two weeks after Chavez said his plan for a
``Great Gas Pipeline of the South'' was on hold. That $20 billion
pipeline to Argentina through the Amazon rain forest had been
``frozen'' by opposition in Brazil, he said July 27.

The Caribbean pipeline would also supply Puerto Rico and Haiti, Chavez
said. He said another way to supply the Caribbean would be to build a
plant to regasify liquefied natural gas in Haiti, which could be ready
in two years. Venezuela has no plants to liquefy natural gas and none
under construction.

The concept of a pipeline across the Caribbean once gained support from
the World Bank, though it was opposed by the U.S. out of concern that
the pipeline would interrupt the U.S.-led blockade of the
Communist-governed island, Chavez said.

Venezuela has more than 150 trillion cubic feet of natural gas,
according to Oil & Gas Journal. More than 90 percent of that can be
extracted only by pumping crude oil.

At the summit, Chavez also proposed building an oil refinery in Guyana
and urged the government of Dominica to accept his offer of a 10,000
barrel-a-day refinery, a project currently awaiting environmental
analysis. He said Venezuela's restoration of the Cienfuegos refinery in
Cuba will complete in November.

Chavez said his plan to fund a refinery in Ecuador will allow the South
American nation to export refined products to China and other Asian
destinations.