hahaha...moron from Caracas :)

[Wagner]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/wo...z.html?_r=1&hp


CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez, buffeted by falling oil prices that threaten to damage his efforts to establish a Socialist-inspired state, is quietly courting Western oil companies once again.

Until recently, Mr. Chávez had pushed foreign oil companies here into a corner by nationalizing their oil fields, raiding their offices with tax authorities and imposing a series of royalties increases.

But faced with the plunge in prices and a decline in domestic production, senior officials have begun soliciting bids from some of the largest Western oil companies in recent weeks — including Chevron, Royal Dutch/Shell and Total of France — promising them access to some of the world’s largest petroleum reserves, according to energy executives and industry consultants here.

Their willingness to even consider investing in Venezuela reflects the scarcity of projects open to foreign companies in other top oil nations, particularly in the Middle East.

But the shift also shows how the global financial crisis is hampering Mr. Chávez’s ideological agenda and demanding his pragmatic side. At stake are no less than Venezuela’s economic stability and the sustainability of his rule. With oil prices so low, the longstanding problems plaguing Petróleos de Venezuela, the national oil company that helps keep the country afloat, have become much harder to ignore.

Embracing the Western companies may be the only way to shore up Petróleos de Venezuela and the raft of social welfare programs, like health care and higher education for the poor, that have been made possible by oil proceeds and have helped bolster his popular support.

“If re-engaging with foreign oil companies is necessary to his political survival, then Chávez will do it,” said Roger Tissot, an authority on Venezuela’s oil industry at Gas Energy, a Brazilian consulting company focusing on Latin America. “He is a military man who understands losing a battle to win the war.”

While the new oil projects would not be completed for years, Mr. Chávez is already looking beyond the end of his current term in 2012 by putting forward a referendum, expected as early as next month, that would let him run for indefinite re-election.

In recent years, Mr. Chávez has preferred partnerships with national oil companies from countries like Iran, China and Belarus. But these ventures failed to reverse Venezuela’s declining oil output. State-controlled oil companies from other nations have also been invited to bid this time, but the large private companies are seen as having an advantage, given their expertise in building complex projects in Venezuela and elsewhere in years past.

The bidding process was first conceived last year when oil prices were higher but Petróleos de Venezuela’s production decline was getting impossible to overlook. Still, the process is moving into high gear only this month, with the authorities here expected to start reviewing the companies’ bidding plans on new areas of the Orinoco Belt, an area in southern Venezuela with an estimated 235 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Altogether, more than $20 billion in investment could be required to assemble devilishly complex projects capable of producing a combined 1.2 million barrels of oil a day.

Mr. Chávez’s olive branch to Western oil companies comes after he nationalized their oil fields in 2007. Two companies, Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips, left Venezuela and are still waging legal battles over lost projects.

But Venezuela may have little choice but to form new ventures with foreign oil companies. Nationalizations in other sectors, like agriculture and steel manufacturing, are fueling capital flight, leaving Venezuela reliant on oil for about 93 percent of its export revenue in 2008, up from 69 percent in 1998 when Mr. Chávez was first elected.

In the past year, with higher oil prices paving the way, Mr. Chávez also vastly expanded Petróleos de Venezuela’s power, inextricably linking it to his political program. He directed the oil company to build roads, import and distribute food, build docks and shipyards and set up a light-bulb factory. He even expanded it into areas like milk production, soybean farming and the training of athletes after a weak performance at the Beijing Olympics.

[E61Silver]

Oil makes the US deal with bad people.

We must continue to find alternative energy sources.

[Wagner]

US isn't the only WESTERN world In fact:

Chevron, Royal Dutch/Shell and Total of France

None of the US right there

[AzX5]

Originally Posted by Wagner

US isn't the only WESTERN world In fact:

Chevron, Royal Dutch/Shell and Total of France

None of the US right there

Chevron?

[Eric5273]

Chevron is indeed an American company.

[Wagner]

Excuse my one mis-print

Socialist...failure

[AzNMpower32]

Venezuela's oil tends to be high in sulfur, bad for cars. Yuck.

But yeah, socialism isn't that easy to run. However, I bet once oil rises again, Chávez will kick them out again.

[Eric5273]

Originally Posted by AzNMpower32

However, I bet once oil rises again, Chávez will kick them out again.

None of them were ever kicked out. Their taxes were raised as was the fee/commission they pay to lease the oil wells, and they decided to leave. There is a difference. Some of the oil companies did not leave and continued to operate there and pay the higher taxes and fees. All of them had that choice.

[Wagner]

Originally Posted by Eric5273

None of them were ever kicked out. Their taxes were raised as was the fee/commission they pay to lease the oil wells, and they decided to leave. There is a difference. Some of the oil companies did not leave and continued to operate there and pay the higher taxes and fees. All of them had that choice.

translated => they were kicked out

"Sure you can build your product that was $1.00 to make but now we are applying a tax making it cost you $12.00 to make...want to stay?"

[Eric5273]

Originally Posted by Wagner

translated => they were kicked out

"Sure you can build your product that was $1.00 to make but now we are applying a tax making it cost you $12.00 to make...want to stay?"

It wasn't like that at all. The taxes were a percentage of profits. If it was how you say, then none of the oil companies would have stayed. But many of them did.