The Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez proposed OPEC should come up with a plan to sell oil to poor countries at dramatically lower prices than those paid by wealthy nations.

Chavez said late Tuesday that he will ask members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries at a summit in Saudi Arabia this weekend to consider a plan to aid poor countries struggling with rising oil prices.

"I would sell oil to a rich country at US$100 (€68.50), and to a poor country perhaps at US$20 (€14)" a barrel, Chavez said. "That breaks with the schemes of capitalism. ... OPEC could do it, although there are hard positions on it, but I'm taking the issue to discuss it."

He said Venezuela is setting an example by selling oil under preferential credit terms to various Latin American and Caribbean countries. But he suggested that with world crude prices near record levels, oil producers all have a moral obligation to help the neediest countries with below-market prices.

"How are you going to sell oil to Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world, at US$100, the same price that you sell it to the United States? It's not right ethically," Chavez said in an interview broadcast on state television late Tuesday.

"We're going to try to obtain the support, if not of all OPEC countries, of some of them, and of other major producers to design a formula thinking of the coming years," Chavez said.

OPEC supplies about four out of every 10 barrels on world oil markets. Chavez said he believes it is time for the cartel to "raise its level of political action."

He said during a news conference earlier that if oil producers agree to the effort, they could also establish a US$100 billion (€68.5 billion) fund that could finance health, education and housing for poverty-stricken nations.

"I always say it would be marvelous if we sold oil to the rich countries at US$200 (€135) a barrel and to the poor countries at US$5 (€3.50) a barrel. It would be a marvelous mechanism of redistribution of the world's wealth, but it's an explosive issue," Chavez told reporters.

Leaders from many of the world's top oil producers, including Chavez, will meet this weekend in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh to discuss the challenges a potential global recession and the weakening value of the U.S. dollar present to the international oil market.

Chavez predicted that crude prices would keep climbing to US$100 (€68.50) a barrel. He warned that prices could reach US$200 (€137) a barrel if the United States were to invade Iran — Venezuela's closest ally in the Middle East.

Light crude for December delivery fell US$4.17 (€2.85) to US$90.45 (€61.92) a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Tuesday. Just last Thursday, crude prices traded as high as US$98.62 (€67.52) — a record.

Venezuela is a major supplier of oil to the United States.