Caracas, Venezuela ? World oil markets will suffer for some time from the effects of the general strike aimed at toppling President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s oil minister said Monday.

The 4-week-old strike has shut down key sectors of the economy and created gasoline and food shortages throughout Venezuela, the world’s No. 5 exporter. Oil production has plunged from 3 million barrels a day to 260,000 barrels a day.

“For some time, we will have distortions on the world oil markets due to this situation,” Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez acknowledged Monday.

The strike escalated Monday as police used tear gas to separate opponents and supporters of Chavez outside the state oil monopoly’s headquarters in Maracaibo.

Strike leader Carlos Ortega, who leads Venezuela’s largest labor federation, called on all citizens Monday to stop paying their taxes.

And secret police arrested National Guard Gen. Carlos Alfonso Martinez, one of dozens who have occupied a Caracas city square for three months. A handful of people protesting the arrest outside secret police headquarters fled under a hail of rocks thrown by Chavez supporters and tear gas fired by police.

The combined influence of Venezuela’s crisis and the threat of U.S. war in Iraq sent crude futures to a high of $31.02 a barrel Monday on London’s International Petroleum Exchange, and a two-year high of $33.65 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

U.S. markets were bracing for higher heating oil prices heading into winter, higher gas prices and higher prices for all sorts of oil-based products. But reports that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was considering increasing output by at least 500,000 barrels a day took some heat out of the price increases.

OPEC’s basket of seven crude oils hit a two-year high of $31.06 a barrel Friday, OPEC officials said Monday. Venezuela is an OPEC member.