Venezuela No. 1 oil import source in S. America

This paper reports that with the exception of Venezuela, the U.S. is likely to import much oil from South American countries through 2010, the General Accounting Office reports. GAO, a congressional watchdog agency, noted the U.S. imports about 4% of its oil from Colombia, Ecuador, and Trinidad and Tobago and possibly could import from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, and Peru in the future. It the the eight countries' crude oil reserves are expected to increase about 30% by 2000, then slide about 2% by 2010. Their oil production is expected to climb about 21% over 1990 by 2000, then level off until 2010