Chavez offers cheap gas to poor in U.S. - Aug 23, 2005 CNN.com

CNN.com - Chavez offers cheap gas to poor in U.S. - Aug 23, 2005: "August 23, 2005; Posted: 7:29 p.m. EDT (23:29 GMT)


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HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, popular with the poor at home, offered on Tuesday to help needy Americans with cheap supplies of gasoline.

'We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States,' the populist leader told reporters at the end of a visit to Communist-run Cuba.

Chavez did not say how Venezuela would go about providing gasoline to poor communities. Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA owns Citgo, which has 14,000 gas stations in the United States.

The offer may sound attractive to Americans feeling pinched by soaring 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 gas prices have risen to $2.61 a gallon in the United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

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."