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HOUSTON (AP) ? ConocoPhillips will not sign an agreement with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for minority stakes in state-run joint ventures to keep pumping heavy crude oil, a company official familiar with the negotiations said Tuesday.

Tuesday was the deadline to either agree to Chavez's terms or give up on Venezuelan oil.

"We will not sign a memorandum of understanding," said the company official, who insisted that he not be named because ConocoPhillips was not ready to make an official announcement.

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Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips refused to sign deals Tuesday to keep pumping heavy oil under tougher terms in Venezuela's Orinoco River basin, signaling their departure from one of the world's largest oil deposits.

Analysts said the move, however, won't have a major effect on supplies or lead to higher prices at U.S. pumps because production by the two companies will shift to other producers who agreed to the pacts.

The changes are part of a broader nationalization drive by President Hugo Chavez to assume greater control over strategic areas of the economy. Aside from the oil industry, the government recently nationalized the country's top telecommunications and electricity companies.

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SINGAPORE - Oil prices were steady in Asia Wednesday as traders awaited the release of a U.S. government inventory report expected to show increases in supplies of crude, gasoline and distillates.

Light, sweet crude for August delivery rose a penny to $67.78 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, mid-afternoon in Singapore. The contract fell $1.41 to settle at $67.77 a barrel Tuesday.

"Prices already factor in the builds. Now traders don't want to move until they see the data," said Koichi Murakami, an analyst with brokerage Daiichi Shohin in Tokyo.

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UNITED NATIONS — The main challengers to U.S. economic power — Brazil, Russia, India and China — have overtaken the United States in dominating the global energy industry, according to a new study by Goldman Sachs.

"For any company operating on a global scale, the world is changing more rapidly, more challenging than ever before — truly globalizing," he said, and one of the significant changes is "the rise of BRIC economies."

At the end of the first Gulf War in 1991, 55 percent of the 20 largest companies in the energy industry by market capitalization were American, and 45 percent were European, according to the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. study.

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