July 13, 2006

What a curious argument!

Sir, Andy Webb-Vidal reports from Caracas, July 13, that “Venezuela is to halt petrol supplies to 1,900 filling stations” and quotes the spokesman for the Venezuela owned Citgo that distribute petrol (gasoline) in the USA through 13,100 brand bearing franchises as saying “We are short [of] about 130,000 barrels a day of gasoline that’s required to meet our customer obligations and we have to purchase that on the open market and that places us in a competitive disadvantage”.

What a curious argument that is! Anyone would have thought that buying gasoline in the open market and distributing was what that business was all about. If Citgo can’t distribute petrol profitable to these 1,900 filling stations, then it sounds like they should perhaps retire from the other 11,200 too.