IF there is one thing calculated to irk a Texan, it is being beaten to an oil deal.

That is especially true if your nemesis is a self-styled anti-capitalist who calls you Mr Danger and has sworn to use his oil riches to undermine your position at every turn.

President Bush faces just such a challenge from Hugo Chávez, the socialist President of Venezuela, who chose the US holiday of Thanksgiving to announce a deal to supply cut-price heating oil to thousands of low-income Americans.

His oil-rich South American country will ship up to 12 million gallons to homes in Massachusetts and the Bronx in New York at 40 per cent below the market rate, it was announced yesterday. To add to Mr Bush’s discomfort, the deal was brokered by a Democratic congressman after the federal Government and US oil companies failed to answer a plea from US politicians to help to reduce fuel costs during the winter.

“We want to help the poorest communities in the US,” said Señor Chavez, in words calculated to cause the maximum annoyance to the White House, already seen as out of touch with America’s poor after the slow response to Hurricane Katrina.

“There are people who die from the cold in winter in the US.” Señor Chávez, who led an anti-Bush rally before the Summit of the Americas this month, sees himself as continuing his mentor Fidel Castro’s project to create a league of South American nations free from US influence.

He supplies an estimated 80,000 barrels of subsidised oil to Cuba every day and signed a deal in the summer to deliver oil to 13 Caribbean countries. He is also sending cheap oil to Sandinista-controlled areas of Nicaragua so that they can cut bus and taxi costs.

The US deal was brokered by Bill Delahunt, a Democrat congressman who represents some of the areas which will benefit. The cut-price fuel will be delivered to needy homes by two not-for-profit groups including Citizens Energy Corp, run by Joseph Kennedy II, the son of Robert Kennedy.

Mr Delahunt said: “With temperatures dropping and oil prices soaring, we’re all worried sick about people without the means to heat their homes.

“It is gratifying that at least one major oil company is willing to step up to help — voluntarily and at its own expense.”But it is widely seen as the most audacious attempt yet by Señor Chávez to irk Mr Bush. Whereas Señor Chávez hopes to be seen as a socialist saviour by millions of poor in the Americas, the Right views him as a dangerous nuisance.

“He is the world’s expert meddler,” said Steve Johnson, an analyst of Latin American affairs at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

“Chávez has been using oil diplomacy since 2001. But he used his position as a founding member of Opec to convince countries to cut oil production in 1999 in order to boost prices and he has been instrumental in raising oil prices again in 2000 and 2003.”

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