There’s a difference between coercion and trying to get a fair price, Bryce says.

Question: Are we going to see more coercive tactics from Russia and Venezuela?

Robert Bryce: Well, I think that is it coercive or they just trying to get the maximum value for their commodity and I guess it depends on the if you are buyer or the seller and for the Russians they are I think simply trying to maximize revenue and that is what producers of the every commodity try and do, the Venezuelans I think a lot has been made of the rhetoric that it is coming out of Venezuela from Hugo Chavez, but as far as I could tell, there had been no contaminants, I mean I haven’t heard of any shipments being stopped from Venezuela to the US. Chavez had talked about the US all he likes but the fact is we are the key market for Venezuela in crude and SITCO [phonetic] is owned by Padevasive, the Venezuela national oil companies, so I just cannot foresee any circumstance where Chavez is going to cut off the flow of oil to the US because it would cut off the flow of oil to his own refineries.

Date Recorded: 03/20/2008