But in November 2005, it signed a deal with the US state of Massachusetts to provide cheap heating oil to poor households.
BBC: NEWS | UK | England | London | Mayor signs Venezuelan oil deal
In an oil-poor country where tourism is the second-largest foreign exchange earner (after phosphate exports) that generates some 20% of GDP, passage of any anti-alcohol measure could cause a net loss of more than 300, 000 jobs.
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The company said it had found relatively poor oil quality and a smaller reservoir size than expected at its Fulla prospect.
But in a statement to the stock exchange on Friday, Faroe said extensive modelling since then had confirmed "relatively poor oil quality, smaller than expected resource size and limited access to infrastructure".
The privatization of ENAP has been considered in the past, and has not be achieved not becuase of resource nationalism (Chile is oil and gas poor) bur because of union and domestic market issues.
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Rather than intervening in the market to manipulate prices, the government could respond to a winter fuel crisis by giving all its heating-oil subsidies to poor consumers (though that would do nothing to win over other voters).
Gas does now contribute 35% to power generation, but rock-bottom prices and a sniffiness about gas as oil's poor relation mean that exploiting its bounty (Saudi Arabia apparently has the world's fifth-largest gas reserves) has proven hard.
For there are very large ones out there, in those poor and oil producing nations.
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When some of his new Wyoming oil wells caught fire, a then cash poor Anschutz managed to convince famed oil firefighter Paul (Red) Adair to go there to put them out.
From being poor in oil, China is now the fifth largest oil producer in the world, behind Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United States and Iran, but ahead of Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Kuwait and Nigeria.
As many noted after the death of Hugo Chavez, Venezuela may have lifted up its poor through oil subsidies, but it is one of the most violent countries in Latin America and has one of the highest inflation rates in the world.
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But it asks questions about how it would do so, it poses challenges to an independent Scotland which it says other countries are facing, and it reflects the fact that public finances - in wealthy and poor, oil-rich and resource-starved - have a nasty habit of requiring uncomfortable choices.
Caught between upsetting the powerful oil states and alienating the poor northeastern states where his party carries substantial support, da Silva has for now convinced Brazilian lawmakers to postpone this debate until after the election.
When some of his new Wyoming oil wells caught fire, Anschutz, who was cash-poor at the time, managed to convince the famous oil firefighter Paul (Red) Adair to go there to put them out.
Those who have studied Venezuela agree: Before Chavez, there were already oil funds being diverted to the poor.
In June Mr Cao suggested that the head of BP America commit hara-kiri because of his poor handling of the oil spill.
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They are in the poor ones and the oil producers.
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But the accident will exacerbate existing problems for the oil giant, giving its unions new negotiation leverage and further soiling the company's poor safety record, which already included several oil spills.
The populists shout louder, and claim that they are helping the poor through state control of oil and gas.
He also wants to subsidise rice- and coffee-farming and to distribute some of the oil money in cash handouts to the poor.
He tapped into their needs and frustrations -- often through confrontations with the Venezuelan elite -- and promised that the country's vast oil wealth would be redistributed to the poor.
Only the best resting place would be good enough for a leader who is revered by all the Emiratis as the man who oversaw the transition of the UAE from a poor desert country to an oil-rich Gulf state with all its trappings.
Oil production only began to dwindle under the poor leadership of Hoxha in the communist era.
Despite the country's oil wealth, 80% of Venezuelans are poor but Mr Chavez has won the hearts of many with extensive school and health programmes, analysts say.
Despite being an oil-producing republic, it was extremely poor.
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However, the picture does not look so bright now following two poor harvests, further depletion in oil production and a drop-off in Iraqi funds, as refugees have by now largely used up their savings.
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In one sense this is obvious: if mining and oil companies reveal the royalties they are paying poor countries then it is more difficult for the politicians in such countries to steal the money.
Concerns about the reliability of Soviet energy supplies are further exacerbated by the notoriously poor condition of the USSR's oil and gas distribution network.
He magnanimously excuses The Economist's poor record of predicting the price of oil: our suggestion in 1999 that oil would remain dirt cheap was conventional wisdom at the time, he says soothingly.
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