nd efficient tools are urgently needed to treat patients in endemic countries. MAIN FACTS: - The partners will facilitate publication of the results to ensure access to the wider community of researchers focusing on neglected tropical diseases. - The public sector will benefit from the drugs developed through this agreement under the best possible conditions to ease access for patients in all endemic countries, irrespective of their level of economic development. - DNDi is a not-for-profit product development partnership working to research and develop new treatments for neglee surface but "are fairly inconsequential," Nomura analyst Boris Segura said. Currently, Venezuela is the fifth-largest supplier of crude to the U.S., having sent nearly 1 million barrels per day in February, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The Citgo refineries can churn out up to 750,000 barrels a day of fuel, or 4.2% of the petroleum products consumed in the U.S. PdVSA also co-owns the 350,000 barrel-a-day Hovensa refinery in the Caribbean, along with Hess Oil Corp. (HES), and the 192,000 barrel-a-day Chalmette Refining LLC plant, along with Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM). Giving the sanctions tooth would have been "inopportune" due to the high prices U.S. drivers are currently paying for fuel and the tight conditions of the oil market, Segura said. The sanctions follow more than a decade of bickering between left-leaning Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and successive administrations in Washington. At times Chavez has vowed to stop exporting oil to the U.S. if there were an attempt on his life, and has floated the idea of selling Citgo. The U.S. and Venezuela once mutually expelled their ambassadors only to reinstate them later. But despite the heated rhetoric that flares periodically, the tight energy links continue. Citgo, for example, has offered free or discounted heating oil to poor and elderly residents in the northeastern U.S., making those residents beneficiaries of Caracas. And the U.S., despite being demonized by Chavez, remains Venezuela's largest trading partner. The U.S. needed to fire a warning shot against those trading with Iran, which the U.S. accuses of developing nuclear weapons despite international treaties and supporting terrorist organizations, analysts say. Chavez sees in fellow OPEC member Iran a political ally against perc