Liberal Forum

RebelGator » Today, 2:58 pm » wrote: ↑

Today, 2:58 pm

Venezuela's nationalization of its oil industry primarily impacted multinational oil corporations, particularly major American and European companies that had operated under concession agreements. 
While international law and independent economists emphasize that Venezuela legally owns the oil reserves within its own territory, the accusation of "theft" refers to the seizure of private corporate assets, infrastructure, and investments without the full payment of legally required compensation. 
The primary entities impacted across Venezuela's two distinct waves of nationalization include:

The 2007 Wave under Hugo Chávez [1]
The most severe financial disputes and uncompensated asset seizures occurred in 2007, when President Hugo Chávez forced foreign operators into minority stakes controlled by the state oil company, PDVSA. 

• ConocoPhillips: The American giant saw its substantial investments in major ventures (such as Petrozuata, Hamaca, and Corocoro) seized outright. International tribunals later ordered Venezuela to pay the company $8.7 billion, of which only a fraction has been recovered.
• ExxonMobil: Refused to accept Chávez's terms and had its extraction infrastructure expropriated. The World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) subsequently awarded ExxonMobil $1.6 billion in compensation.
• Other Impacted Majors: Companies like BP, Statoil (now Equinor), Total, and Chevron agreed to restructure into minority-stake joint ventures to avoid outright seizure, though their overall financial control was heavily diluted. 

Just so we don't step over some ****, Conoco Phillips inked its deal with Prezident Perez, who implemented strict austerity measures that triggered the Caracazo riots and two attempted military coups in 1992 - one of them led by Hugo Chávez, who later became president and told Conoco Phillips there was a new sheriff in town. Pérez was impeached and removed from office for embezzlement in May 1993.

So, yeeeeaaaahhhhh, there was a "deal". Negotiated and agreed and signed with a crook. Who was impeached. Who implemented austerity measures against his own people. Assuming there was no corruption in that deal - that the people of Venezuela got fair dinkum, and Chavez had no justification for reworking the contracts a corrupt and impeached president had signed - requires a certain je ne sais gayness.

History did not start the day that Chavez came to power and reworked deals with the oil companies.