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New Venezuela `oil show' makes Houston debut*** We could brush off Venezuela's travails as yet another internal strife in a much tormented oil producing country with an endemic history of corruption and ineptitude. But this is too close to home, with Venezuela's oil playing a huge role on the U.S. energy security and a direct linkage with our gasoline prices. Venezuela is the largest exporter of refined products to the United States and holds a significant position in U.S. domestic refining capacity. PDVSA also owns Citgo, one of the largest retailers of gasoline in this country. What has been going on in Venezuelan oil production the last few months?

After a devastating and permanent removal from the market of at least 250 million barrels during the strike, the country's oil production is now about 2.6 million barrels a day, compared with 3.4 million before the PDVSA strike. This partial rebound is misleading because 1 million barrels a day comes from foreign company "associations" in Venezuela and 800,000 barrels a day come from the giant North Monagas and El Furrial fields. These fields are now being produced at full throttle with many technical questions as to the long-term damage that this overproduction may cause. Decapitation of the engineering staff has led to a big drop in production from the more challenging fields. Such a decline will accelerate further and will become devastating next year and thereafter. It is not just the dearth of know-how; there will be no money to reinvest.

PDVSA today has the largest debt in its history. Service companies, oil carriers and suppliers are now owed probably $3 billion to $5 billion, accumulated over the last five months. Coupled with the fact that the Exim Bank has eliminated all credit guarantees for Venezuela and Chavez's own debt to his constituents, whose bribing will have to be manifested in increased welfare spending and giveaways, point toward a very turbulent time ahead. It will be interesting and somewhat breathtaking to watch the "show" by the new PDVSA delegation this week in Houston. ***

Pro-Marxist Slant Pushed at ABC*** According to (Peter) Collins, Jennings "took a piece that I had written about the 10th anniversary of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua [in 1989] and first asked his producer to correct it for me and then he himself called me up in Managua and essentially dictated to me what I should say." "Basically what Mr. Jennings wanted was for me to make a favorable pronouncement about the 10 years of the Sandinista revolution and he called me up, massaged my script in a way that I no longer recognized it," Collins said.

………. "If it were not for for Rush Limbaugh, the Washington Times,and Fox News -- those organizations, entities, have finally managed to break the dam," Collins said. "Ph.D. pieces could be written about this subject, dozens of them."***