If ExxonMobil wins its case(s) and Chavez follows through with his threats, this could very well be the straw that does it... Chavez threatens to halt oil sales to US http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080210/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/venezuela_us_exxon CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez on Sunday threatened to cut off oil sales to the United States in an "economic war" if Exxon Mobil Corp. wins court judgments to seize billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets. Exxon Mobil has gone after the assets of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA in U.S., British and Dutch courts as it challenges the nationalization of a multibillion dollar oil project by Chavez's government. A British court has issued an injunction "freezing" as much as $12 billion in assets. "If you end up freezing (Venezuelan assets) and it harms us, we're going to harm you," Chavez said during his weekly radio and television program, "Hello, President." "Do you know how? We aren't going to send oil to the United States. Take note, Mr. Bush, Mr. Danger." Chavez has repeatedly threatened to cut off oil shipments to the United States, which is Venezuela's No. 1 client, if Washington tries to oust him. Chavez's warnings on Sunday appeared to extend that threat to attempts by oil companies to challenge his government's nationalization drive through lawsuits. "I speak to the U.S. empire, because that's the master: continue and you will see that we won't sent one drop of oil to the empire of the United States," Chavez said Sunday. "The outlaws of Exxon Mobil will never again rob us," Chavez said, accusing the Irving, Texas-based oil company of acting in concert with Washington. A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez has argued that court orders won by Exxon Mobil have "no effect" on the state oil company PDVSA and are merely "transitory measures" while Venezuela presents its case in courts in New York and London. Exxon Mobil is also taking its claims to international arbitration, disputing the terms it was granted under Chavez's nationalization last year of four heavy oil projects in the Orinoco River basin, one of the world's richest oil deposits. Other major oil companies including U.S.-based Chevron Corp., France's Total, Britain's BP PLC, and Norway's StatoilHydro ASA have negotiated deals with Venezuela to continue on as minority partners in the Orinoco oil project. ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil, however, balked at the tougher terms and have been in compensation talks with PDVSA.
So let me get this straight... Exxon enters into a legal contract with Venezuela to jointly develop a heavy oil project. Venezuela renegs on the contract and changes the terms to Exxon's detriment. Exxon takes them to international court to regain what was taken from them. Hugo Chavez then threatens to instigate an economic war on the US and calls Exxon 'outlaws' and 'robbers'. Man that guy is an idiot.
Rockefeller vs. La Revolucion! You gotta give up for Chavez.....like him or not, the man's got some serious balls!
How can any American side with Hugo Chavez on his anti-American propaganda and policies? He is an uneducated buffoon who is only interested in riling up his people with demagoguery and incendiary comments. He is a total destabilizing force in the world.
If by balls you mean no brains then yes, he has plenty of that. Chavez likes to spit words out but the fact is all he has is oil and a big mouth, without any of that he's just a fat guy that wears red a lot.
He reminds me so much of Nasser of Egypt, except he's even more 'liberal' with some of his rhetoric, but both share a similar vision.
Yes, well thanks to a certain dependancy on a certain resource, he's a powerful fat guy that wears red a lot. Also speaking of something related to that resource, if the Saudis ever decided America was no longer in it's intrests, then ***** would hit the fan. Eh, oil's an itch with a b.
No no he is a very skilled politician and formidable foe, not to be taken lightly. Watching any of his speeches it is immediately apparent how articulate, clever, and intelligent he is. Of course everyone has their flaws - and his is starting to really show now as he is surely biting off more than he can chew going up against XOM...
Exxon wants over 12 billion from the largest oil field reserve. That;s just silly....U.S's Chevron, UK's BP, France's Total and Norway's Statoil all accepted Chavez's deal with them when he nationalized the industry, only Exxon and ConocoPhillips rejected it. It's a corporation just being greedy and causing me to pay more at the pump....damn. Trader_Jorge, oil companies have unfairly raped countries of their national resources, who's to say what's fair? There’s nothing wrong with nation’s trying to do what’s in their best interest………
It's just saber-rattling. Chavez may not have a clue about how to run a country, but his not really crazy. He's crazy like a fox. He knows that cutting off the US on oil hurts his own country more than the US, and he won't do it. But he also knows that whenever he makes a statement like this, all of the hyped-up oil traders go crazy for a while, and the price of oil goes up.
Both of your points are wrong. 1. Please tell me how a mutually agreed upon relationship for XOM to develop Venezuela's oil resources and share in the profits is 'raping the country'. Please tell me that. It's a great liberal/communist applause line, but it's just not founded in reality. So since you claim it's true, please explain yourself. 2. There IS something wrong with what Chavez is proposing -- he (Venezuela) is violating and tearing up the contract.
The other problem here is that I do not believe Chavez has many options as to which refineries can process his heavy crude in an economic fashion. I could be wrong here, but my understanding is that the US is one of his only options in this regard. So this thread could very well be empty. Nonetheless it underscores his idiocy.
It's not just economics. There aren't many refineries that can process Venezuelan crudes under any economic conditions.
I have a friend at Exxon that says Chavez is building large refinery in Cuba and that he plans to take his oil off the market and sell directly to China.
Read this, it will give you an idea how a nationalized industry changes things for a country....I'm not against open markets, privatization, or deregulation....I'm against when big companies use political influence to gain an unfair advantage. http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=492&language_id=1
Chavez is also accusing the U.S. of selling cocaine in Venezuela. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=a2x5ASu3Ir28&refer=latin_america If this is true, can you blame him for being upset? (I ask in jest)
Colombian drug lords operate without harassment from the Government. Presidents Uribe and Bush are friends. Therefore, with a wit-us-or-agin'-us worldview, you can say that Bush is selling cocaine in Venezuela.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/10/AR2008021001969.html Life After Chávez By Jackson Diehl Monday, February 11, 2008; Page A13 Is Hugo Chávez crashing? It's hard to believe that a strongman who commands more than $40 billion in annual petroleum revenue, who has been granted the right to rule by decree by a rubber-stamp parliament, who controls his country's courts and television media, and who has recently spent billions on new weapons for his army could have much to worry about. Yet as Venezuela's president held a parade to celebrate the 16th anniversary of his unsuccessful military coup against a former democratic government last week, his own nine-year-old administration was struggling to pull out of a tailspin. The trouble began in early December when Venezuelan voters rejected a new constitution that would have turned Venezuela into a socialist state along the lines of the Cuban model and made Chávez its de facto president-for-life. The self-styled "Bolivarian revolutionary" accepted the democratic verdict, according to multiple Venezuelan accounts, only after the country's military commanders told him they would not support him if the announcement of a fraudulent result touched off a popular rebellion. Since then an increasingly erratic Chávez has dug his political hole steadily deeper. He shocked both Venezuelans and leftists across Latin America by publicly embracing the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a onetime Marxist guerrilla group that long ago morphed into a syndicate of kidnappers and drug traffickers. Last week hundreds of thousands of people from Bogota and Caracas to Madrid and Tokyo responded with anti-FARC marches. Chávez then struck a bellicose posture toward Colombia's democratic government -- which only served to generate broad international sympathy for Colombia's conservative president, Álvaro Uribe, while once again provoking jitters among Venezuelan military commanders. Venezuelans not worrying about war are increasingly obsessed with the remarkable result of Chávez's disastrous economic policies: worsening shortages of consumer goods and soaring prices, a combination previously seen only in such benighted places as Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. Almost every day, newspapers report another addition to the items missing from store shelves: from milk, bread, sugar, chicken, eggs, rice and cheese to auto parts and over-the-counter drugs. A black market thrives; food is smuggled across the border to Colombia, while cocaine in increasing quantities is trafficked back to Venezuela. Chávez recently raised the price of milk 37 percent, contributing to an inflation rate that hit 22 percent in 2007 and 3.4 percent in just the month of January. But he also threatened to seize private banks, farms, supermarkets and food distributors, thereby ensuring that the investments needed to end the shortages will not take place. Several years ago all this bad news would have had Venezuela's opposition rubbing its hands in barely concealed anticipation of the military coup, national strike or people-power revolt that would finish Chávez once and for all. No doubt some are doing so now -- notwithstanding the previous failure of coups and strikes. But what's interesting about Venezuela is that even as Chávez has grown more erratic, his opposition has been getting more mature. Some are even hoping that their nemesis pulls out of his tailspin -- so that he can survive to be defeated in a free and fair election. "The difference is that the united opposition is not trying to overthrow Chávez but to build something for November 2012," when the next presidential election is scheduled, says Teodoro Petkoff, the longtime leader of Venezuela's democratic left, who visited Washington recently. "This is the long-term construction of an alternative." Petkoff, who began his own career as a leftist guerrilla, is now, at 76, one of the foremost advocates of a democratic solution to the political polarization and growing civil disorder touched off by Chávez. As he sees it, the Venezuelan opposition has gone through three stages since Chávez took office: first plotting his undemocratic ouster, then sullenly and foolishly boycotting elections -- which allowed the president to install his followers in every seat of Congress and 23 of the 24 state governorships. Now, boosted by the defeat of the constitution -- which it, too, did not expect -- the opposition at last is focusing on elections, beginning with November's rerun of the governors. Unified opposition candidates and platforms are planned; Petkoff thinks there's a chance the anti-Chávez forces could take power in Caracas and up to seven other states. That would probably be a fatal blow to Chávez's lingering hopes of converting Venezuela into a Cuba -- and a first step toward electing a different president in 2012. The challenge, Petkoff says, is not to push Chávez over the brink on which he and the country teeter, but "to create a force capable of governing. Because I suspect the post-Chávez era in Venezuela is going to be a very traumatic period." That will be true whether Chávez's exit is peaceful or fiery, but an opposition that waits, and banks on democracy, will have a better chance to heal.
