Venezuela to host South American energy summit

energy

CARACAS (AFP) - South American leaders will gather on Monday to discuss energy integration projects at a summit hosted by Hugo Chavez, oil-rich Venezuela's firebrand president whose opposition to ethanol puts him at odds with his Brazilian counterpart.

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projects promoted by Venezuela, the only Latin American member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (

OPEC

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OPEC).

The South American leaders will also discuss ethanol, a biofuel whose global production is dominated by Brazil and the United States, which respectively produce it from sugarcane and from corn.

Aides said Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva would reiterate his commitment to the expansion of ethanol, which he highlighted in talks with George W. Bush when the US president toured the region last month.

Both Chavez and his Cuban ally

Fidel Castro

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Fidel Castro have warned increased ethanol production would fuel global hunger by using up arable land needed for food production.

But the Venezuelan president insisted he would not pick a fight with Brazil's moderate leftist leader.

"We will never fight with Lula, we will never fight with Brazil. Our enemy is the US empire," Chavez said.

"The issue is not ethanol as an additive. The issue is the US empire wanting to substitute gasoline with ethanol. That's crazy."

But US Ambassador William Brownfield said on Friday Washington hoped the energy summit would help promote the development of the biofuel.

"We believe ethanol is an important and possibly essential element in conversations over energy for the future," he told journalists.

"Ethanol is not the solution for the 21st century, but without doubt, it is part of the solution."

Leaders at the summit also planned to discuss an ambitious project to build a 5,000-mile (8,000-kilometer) pipeline to deliver natural gas from Venezuela to Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Brazil and Venezuela agreed in January to move ahead with the first stage of the project, which would take the pipeline to the Brazilian city of Recife.

Chavez is also certain to highlight his country's Petro-America project that sells crude at preferential prices to impoverished countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Buoyed by high oil prices, Venezuela is also building refineries in Cuba, Brazil, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay and Uruguay.

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Iran, is promoting the creation of an OPEC-like cartel for natural gas exporting countries. Both countries' energy ministers discussed the idea during a two-day gathering in Doha earlier this month.

The presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela are scheduled to attend the April 16-17 First South American Energy Summit on Isla Margarita, off Venezuela's Caribbean coast.