Venezuela's Chavez seeks energy pact at South American summit

Porlamar, Venezuela (Platts)--17Apr2007

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez said Monday he is seeking to sign a
South American Energy Agreement with the region's heads of state as part of
plans for wider economic integration between the region's 12 countries.
"I spoke about the need for a South American energy agreement, which
guarantees all the South American nations energy, oil, gas, alternative energy
for 100 years. This is very important because the world energy crisis
continues," Chavez said after the first day of a two-day South American Energy
Summit in Venezuela.
The South American energy summit, the first of its kind, is being hosted
by Chavez to promote and agree on a number of oil, gas, power and alternative
fuel projects in the region. The heads of state will continue to seek
agreement over the terms of the energy deal on Tuesday, Chavez said.
The energy summit is being attended by Chile, Argentina, Uruguay,
Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Paraguay, Bolivia, Suriname and Guyana.
Chavez also said the summit agreed to name the project for wider economic
and political integration in South America, Unasur or the Union of the
South American Nations.
He said South America's heads of states also agreed to create a permanent
executive secretariat of Unasur in Ecuador's capital Quito, but gave no
schedule for the plan.
The South American heads of states signed in Cochabamba, Bolivia last
year a project to pursue greater economic integration. The Cochabamba
Declaration was heralded as the "cornerstone of the South American integration
process" and called for a new model of integration on the scale of the
European Union for the 21st century.
Also speaking after the first day of the summit, Venezuelan finance
minister Rodrigo Cabezas said Unasur would look at using energy as one of the
first steps to greater integration.
"We are talking about complete political, economic, and financial
integration of South America and we are hoping for a single currency. It would
be more difficult than Europe because we have bigger asymmetries and
inequalities," he said.
"It would be a bit different from the EU, but it would strive for the most
complete synergies between ourselves."
Chavez also said he noted "a lot of acceptance" at the meeting for the
creation of BancoSur, a proposed regional alternative bank to the
International Monetary Fund, which Chavez accuses of imposing neo-liberal,
US-inspired blueprints on developing countries.