Yurt
01-15-2009, 12:12 PM
Quietly, Chávez reopens the door to Western oil firms
Until recently, buoyed by the surging price of oil, Chávez had pushed foreign oil companies here into a corner by nationalizing their oil fields, raiding their offices with the tax authorities and imposing a series of royalty increases.
But faced with the plunge in oil prices and a decline in domestic production, senior officials here have quietly begun soliciting some of the largest Western oil companies in recent weeks, including Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell and Total, in the hope of getting them to invest in Venezuela again
...
But the shift also shows Chávez's pragmatic side. At stake are no less than Venezuela's economic stability and the sustainability of his government. With oil prices so low, the longstanding problems plaguing Petróleos de Venezuela SA, the national oil company that is driving his socialist-inspired revolution, have become much harder to ignore. Embracing the Western companies may be the only way to shore up the company - and his personal ambitions.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/15/america/venez.php
damn those western capitalists....
Until recently, buoyed by the surging price of oil, Chávez had pushed foreign oil companies here into a corner by nationalizing their oil fields, raiding their offices with the tax authorities and imposing a series of royalty increases.
But faced with the plunge in oil prices and a decline in domestic production, senior officials here have quietly begun soliciting some of the largest Western oil companies in recent weeks, including Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell and Total, in the hope of getting them to invest in Venezuela again
...
But the shift also shows Chávez's pragmatic side. At stake are no less than Venezuela's economic stability and the sustainability of his government. With oil prices so low, the longstanding problems plaguing Petróleos de Venezuela SA, the national oil company that is driving his socialist-inspired revolution, have become much harder to ignore. Embracing the Western companies may be the only way to shore up the company - and his personal ambitions.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/15/america/venez.php
damn those western capitalists....