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WASHINGTON : Some 200,000 US households will no longer get cheap heating oil from Venezuela after the state-owned CITGO subsidiary announced it was dropping the program due to falling oil prices, the organization in charge of distributing the oil said Tuesday.
"Citizens Energy has recently been informed by CITGO that due to falling oil prices and the world economic crisis, CITGO has been forced to re-evaluate all their social programs, including the heating oil program," Citizen Energy Corporation spokesman Brian O'Connor told AFP by telephone.
"Close to 200,000 households throughout the US" benefited from the Venezuelan program since 2005, he said, adding that Venezuelan oil donations in 2007 amounted to 100 million dollars.
Leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2005 irked the administration of President George W. Bush when he announced the cheap heating oil program for US households in the midst of rising oil prices. Some branded the offer as propaganda.
Since July, however, the price of oil has plummeted from 130 dollars a barrel to a little over 27 dollars, raising concerns in Venezuela, which derives 90 percent of its foreign currency revenues from oil. The government gets half its funding from oil.
Citizens Energy president Joseph Kennedy II said he personally appealed to Chavez to keep the discount oil program running, to no avail.
O'Connor said the group was warned weeks ago by Citgo of its impending decision, which he regretted came as a shock "not only in the middle of the winter, but in the middle of an economic shot," referring to the global economic crisis.
- AFP/sf
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