Get Used to 'Fair' Oil Prices, Says Venezuela Updated 12:14 PM ET September 24, 2000 CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez insisted Sunday that consumer nations must get used to paying "fair" prices for oil, arguing that oil producers had been heavily exploited in the past. A left-leaning former paratrooper, Chavez hosts a summit of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) this week at a time when crude oil prices are bubbling close to their highest level in a decade.

But Chavez, who has emerged as one of the fiercest price hawks in the oil cartel, reiterated his belief that current prices were not high, but fair.

"The thing is that for a century they (consumer nations) took millions of barrels of oil at giveaway prices, that's part of the problem -- they got into bad habits," Chavez said in his weekly radio show "Hello President."

Preparing to host only the second summit in OPEC's 40-year history, Chavez said the meeting's objective was to "strengthen the organization, obtain fair prices for oil and stabilize prices as well."

Referring to the oil cartel's target price band, he added: "We've set a price of between $22 and $28 a barrel as a fair price for the moment, but we'll have to adjust that as well in the future," he said.

OPEC, which controls two-thirds of world exports, has increased its quotas three times this year in an attempt to keep prices in a $22-$28 per barrel range. But the price has averaged $32.50 per barrel this month on fears the United States will run short of heating oil this winter.

President Clinton approved on Friday the release of 30 million barrels of oil over 30 days from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a move that is expected to drive prices lower.

Chavez said OPEC was not to blame for the price spike.

"There's a trend in developed countries ... to try to persuade people that OPEC is the ogre, that OPEC is guilty of causing the increase in prices for fuel, the increase in inflation. That's not true.

Chavez's oil minister, OPEC President Ali Rodriguez, argues that oil supplies comfortably exceed demand and that recent price rises have been caused by refining bottlenecks, transportation problems and speculation on crude futures markets.

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), September 24, 2000