Despite costing state-owned oil company PDVSA around $US50 million a day and further damaging Venezuela's already battered international image, the strike against incumbent President Hugo Chavez by his political opponents is now entering its third week.

In addition to the appalling situation in Venezuela, analysts are openly tipping further oil price rises because of the possibility of fuel shortages this northern winter as well as US threats to invade Iraq to topple President Saddam Hussein.

"If we look at the last spike, crude prices approached nearly $US35 a barrel," said John Hirjee, oil analyst at Deutsche Bank.

"Now if this strike in Venezuela is prolonged then we could conceivably see prices reach that level again and in conjunction with the cold weather in the US, all in all I don't think that oil prices in the short term are heading downwards."

Last week, the OPEC announced at its meeting in Vienna it will cut output by between 1.5 and 1.7 million barrels a day. It was the first time this year that OPEC has decided to change its production quotas.