PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ has won friends at home and abroad with his generous spending on social programs, ranging from support for Venezuela’s single mothers to deals on fuel for its energy-hungry neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean.
But Chavez’s cash cow, Venezuela’s state oil company, cannot keep paying the price forever. The long-term capacity of the world’s eighth-largest oil exporter to keep pumping crude is under threat because it is spending more on Chavez’s ideological agenda than on badly needed investments, industry analysts say, as the company saw a sharp fall in 2006 profits on Tuesday.
