| " President Hugo Chávez has won friends at home and abroad with generous spending on social programs, ranging from support for Venezuela's single mothers to shipments of cheap heating oil to poor Americans from Massachusetts to Alaska." "But Chávez's cash cow, the state oil company of Venezuela, Petróleos de Venezuela, cannot keep paying the price forever. Its long-term capacity to keep pumping crude is under threat because it is spending more on Chávez's ideological agenda than on badly needed investments, industry analysts say." "Petróleos, which is also the fourth-largest oil supplier to the United States, "is overstretched to capacity with any number of needs," said Patrick Esteruelas, an analyst at the Eurasia Group, based in New York. "It simply can't cope at this stage."" "The company is borrowing billions from international lenders, even as independent estimates show that its output falling. U.S. government data shows that imports from Venezuela last year hit a 12-year low after dropping 8.2 percent from 2005." "Chávez says exports to the United States are falling because Venezuela is diversifying its oil buyers. Venezuela, home to the largest reserves outside the Middle East, is making production cuts ordered by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, according to the Venezuelan energy minister." "But the decline in the company's finances may also reflect the strain of Chávez's spending." "A recent report by the Caracas-based economic institute Cieca estimated that Petróleos had a net loss of $3.7 billion in 2006, a year when most major oil companies posted record profits." "The analysis showed that Petróleos handed over about 70 percent of its gross revenue to the state, including $28.7 billion in taxes, royalties and dividends, and $9.9 billion for other social spending." ""Spending on social programs is not a problem in itself," said Enrique Sira, the Caracas-based analyst for Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "But it is a problem when it's done at the expense of industry growth."" "For example, Petróleo Brasileiro of Brazil, or Petrobras, is planning $87.7 billion in investments over the next four years, and yet there are few doubts about its ability to contribute to the Brazilian government's coffers: It handed about 35 percent of its gross revenue to the government
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