Chavez
wants two oil giants out
Trinidad Guardian
Port Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
09 09 07
The Venezuelan government is demanding that oil
giants ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips leave the
country with no compensation for their assets.
This because they are refusing to come under state
control, according to Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez,
who was cited in a report in Forbes magazine.
Talks between the Venezuelan government and the
two companies have been underway since late June.
The
two firms refused to agree with a law passed
by President Hugo Chavez’s government,
which forced multinational companies to give
at least
60 per cent of their capital in Venezuelan operations
to the state-controlled Petroleos de Venezuela
SA (Pdvsa), the report stated.
“We are negotiating with the companies that
have not accepted our laws in order to finalise
their departure from the country,” Ramirez
said earlier this week, according to the Forbes
report.
“We
have been very clear since last year: quite simply,
it does not interest us to work with
companies that do not accept our laws.”
The
minister added that the era of “oil
openness is over,” and that no compensation
would be given to the US companies.
This is a change from mid-July, when Venezuela
was negotiating in good faith to compensate the
oil companies for their loss of assets, in hopes
to avoid legal arbitration, CSNews Online reported
at the time.
Ramirez
noted earlier this week that those companies
that do work with PDVSA would be allowed to stay
in “the biggest oil reserve on the planet” for
at least 25 years. Companies that agreed to the
new terms include Chevron Corp, BP, France’s
Total SA and Norway’s Statoil ASA.
Trinidad
Guardian
Thursday 6th September, 2007
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Guardian . All Rights Reserved.
