Exxon Is No Longer Welcome In Venezuela

[Gold9472]

Venezuelan: Exxon Mobil Not Welcome

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/business/3758035.html

(Gold9472: George, are you gonna take that? Your best buddies have been kicked out of Venezuela. Time to invade?)

By NATALIE OBIKO PEARSON AP Business Writer
The Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela's oil minister said Wednesday that Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's second-largest integrated oil company, was no longer welcome in this oil-producing nation.

Exxon Mobil has resisted tax increases and contract changes that are part of a policy by President Hugo Chavez's government to "re-nationalize" the oil industry.

Rather than submit to new terms that will turn 32 privately run oil fields over to state control, the company sold its stake in the 150,000 barrel-a-day Quiamare-La Ceiba field to its partner, Spanish-Argentine major Repsol YPF, to avoid accepting the unfavorable terms in December.

"There are some companies that prefer to leave" than accept the policy changes, Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said in an interview with the state-run TV broadcaster. "Exxon Mobil ... preferred to sell to Repsol, its partner in the agreement, rather than adjust."

"We said we don't want them to be here then," Ramirez said. "We have many partners, many capabilities and many countries that are willing to manage our resources with us."

Exxon Mobil officials did not immediately return calls for comment late Wednesday.

Exxon Mobil was also the only firm to publicly speak against a royalty increase on extra-heavy oil production in Venezuela's Orinoco tar belt in 2004.

Other oil companies, including ConocoPhillips, France's Total SA, Chevron Corp. and Norway's Statoil ASA, agreed to the new terms without a struggle, while Exxon Mobil had threatened international arbitration.

In February, state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, ousted Exxon from a multibillion dollar petrochemicals project, claiming that the company did not meet timetables for getting the project off the ground.

The Irving, Texas company still holds a 41.7 percent stake in the 120,000-barrel-a-day Cerro Negro heavy oil upgrading project in the Orinoco belt, which it operates along with partners BP and PDVSA.

Also, Exxon Mobil and Canadian oil and gas company PetroCanada each hold a 50 percent stake in the La Ceiba field under a profit-sharing contract with PDVSA. Exxon operates the field.

Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil exporter and a main source of U.S. oil imports.

[Good Doctor HST]

To see what will eventually happen in Venezuela, please refer to the CIA operation PBSUCCESS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_PBSUCCESS) in 1954; and how United Fruit got their way in Guatemala.

History will more than likely repeat itself.

[Partridge]

I doubt they'll do a Guatemala - too obvious, and too likely to inflame Latin America (not to mention the millions of Latinos in the US itself) at such an act of naked aggression.

I think we might see something along the lines of the Contra War in Nicaragua - possibly involving a manufactured 'border dispute' with Colombia (after Uribe's inevitable re-election this year, he doesn't have to worry about domestic opinion for another five years). Could see rightwing Colombian paramilitaries and/or US trained 'anti-communist' terrorists infiltrating through Colombia, provoking reaction from the Venezulean armed forces. This becomes a 'border dispute' (used to futher demonize Chavez) and justify increased paramilitary presence on the bordrer - and probably more US troops in Colombia. Then we see a long protracted reactionary guerrilla/terrorist war in the countryside, and bombing and assassinations in the cities, forcing Chavez to militarize society which in turned is used to paint him as a military dictator.

Remember, they don't actually have to oust Chavez (though that would be favourable), they just have to put a break/reverse gear on the Revolution like they did in Nicaragua. It took 10 years, but they finally got the (democratically elected) Sandinistas out of power and now power resides in a compliant neo-liberal regime (and the Sandinistas are now divided between the leftwing and the 'pragmatic' wing). But Nicaragua stopped being a threat (in the sense that it was an inspiration, not in the '"two days march from Texas" sense) by the mid eighties because they had to wage a military struggle in an impoverished country instead of a revolutionary-democratic-social struggle.

Just my two cents.

Ironically enough, the bombing of Guatemala was one of the events that really radicalised Che Guevara (he was there during the assaults) and turned him into a revolutionary. And almost 40 years after the CIA executed him, he remains one of the biggest inspirations for the poor in Latin America. "If you strike me down..." Hehe.