Venezuela's need to produce more energy, amid a power crisis, threatens declining exports of fuel oil and diesel, which are used in power generators throughout the country. "From now on, there will be an increase in diesel consumption in shopping malls and other places," said José Manuel Aller, an academic expert at Simón Bolívar University. "We are going to export much less" oil byproducts.

Exports of fuel had already declined in 2009 due to oil production cuts under the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and growing domestic consumption in vehicles and power plants.

Between February and December 2009, the volume of exports of oil byproducts decreased by 17 percent to 389,480 barrels per day, while 500,000 barrels per day were sold in the domestic market, Reuters reported.

The power crisis, which began to appear in 2008 with blackouts in more than half of the country, has worsened since August 2009.

The opening of new thermal power plants under the administration of Hugo Chávez, particularly since the government nationalized the sector in 2007, has increased domestic demand of fuels, which has further increased with the installation of small power plants by private companies.

Between January and November 2009, the use of fuel oil by the electricity sector rose 62.2 percent on a year-to-year basis to almost 54,000 barrels per day, according to the Office of Operations of Interconnected Systems (Opsis). The use of diesel has also increased by 15 percent during the period, to a total of 54,800 barrels per day.