Chavez Courting the West

[EagleSmack]

Chávez reopens oil bids to West as prices plunge - International Herald Tribune


CARACAS: 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, 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 here 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.

Get those kneepads out Chavez!

 

[Toro]

Yeah, Hugh is fracked with oil this low.

Production has plummeted since he became President because he's been starving PdVSA and using the money that should have gone to capital projects to pay for social programs, not to mention he fired about a third of the engineers and stacked the company with cronies after the coup attempt. No surprise there.

Considering that Hugh was nationalizing the fields just a year or two ago, I'd make sure that I have an iron-clad contract to be adjudicated in the US or British courts before investing another dime in Venezuela, at least until Hugh is gone.