Oil showdown looms with Venezuela's Chávez

[Pharaoh]

CARACAS: With President Hugo Chávez setting a May 1 deadline for an ambitious plan to wrest control of several major oil projects from American and European companies, a showdown is looming here over access to some of the most coveted energy resources outside the Middle East.

Moving beyond empty threats to cut off all oil exports to the United States, Venezuelan officials have recently stepped up the pressure on the oil companies operating here, warning that they might sell American refineries meant to process Venezuelan crude oil even as they seek new outlets in China and elsewhere around the world.

"Chávez is playing a game of chicken with the largest oil companies in the world," said Pietro Pitts, an oil analyst who publishes LatinPetroleum, an industry magazine based here. "And for the moment he is winning."

But this confrontation could easily end up with everyone losing.


http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/10/news/venez.php


:dem: :dem: :dem:

[Peace Patriot]

1. It takes 13 paragraphs before the IHT admits that Chavez is PAYING Big Oil for the assets.

"The talks have bogged down over how much the oil companies' stakes in four big Orinoco projects are worth, whether Venezuela's cash-short oil company would pay for the assets in oil instead of cash and, most important, who would manage the reduced operations of the foreign oil companies." --IHT (Simon Romero, Clifford Kraus)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/10/news/venez.php

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Although IHT tends to be a cut above the other war profiteering corporate news monopolies, notice the pro-global corporate framing of this story, starting in paragraph 1, with Chavez seeking to "wrest control" of major oil projects from US and EU "companies" (global corporate predators). Whose oil is it? These giant predators beasts', or the PEOPLE of Venezuela, who ELECTED Hugo Chavez, most recently with SIXTY-THREE PERCENT of the vote, in the most highly monitored elections on earth, to create policy and administer their government AND their assets? "Wrest control"? Corporations operate in a country by permission of the SOVEREIGN PEOPLE of that country in a democracy. They have no inherent rights there. They are interpolators, exploiters, and are furthermore notorious for wielding illegitimate power in third world countries, often through devious or brutal means. "Wrest control," indeed. These oil giants and other resource extractors were the original "wresters" of control over resources that should have been benefiting local people and supporting local development--schools, medical care, decent housing, small business aid--but with the profits instead being bled off to foreign investors and fatcat CEOs.

Here's another example. The word 'expropriation' should be in quotation marks. Instead, it is smoothly integrated into the sentence, giving it a slick of subliminal truth: "By setting a May 1 deadline for what some foreign oil executives consider an expropriation, the Venezuelan leader risks losing Exxon, ConocoPhillips and other companies, which are loath to put their employees and billions of dollars in assets under Venezuelan management."

The article furthermore quotes Houston oil men (the Baker Botts law firm, etc.) and other interested parties, and quotes no one from the Venezuelan government, claiming that, "Ramírez, the energy minister, declined repeated requests for an interview"--which I simply do not believe. Venezuelan government ministers, like their President, are the most talkative people in the world. Something is not right here. The energy minister was on vacation, perhaps, and IHT rushed this article into print anyway, without consulting anyone else in the Venezuelan government? It has the smell of a hit piece.

The article is not as bad as some I've read. For instance, it places the Venezuelan government's plans in context. Most of the world's oil is state-controlled:

"During the last several decades, control of global oil reserves has steadily passed from private companies to national oil companies like Petróleos de Venezuela. According to a new Rice University study, 77 percent of the world's 1.148 trillion barrels of proven reserves is in the hands of the national companies; 14 of the top 20 oil-producing companies are state-controlled."

And I would say it's worth reading WITH CAUTION. We're getting the Oil Party LINE here, with some facts thrown in that it might be useful to know. But beware of subtext messages--such as their treating these global corporate predators as if they were persons or, indeed, countries, with a right to exist and a right to profit. They are no such thing. They are artificial entities, who have extracted the right to permanent life and more human rights than individuals have, from our corporate controlled legal system, and are operating solely for the profit of the super-rich. What WE should be doing--if we had a democracy here (transparent vote counting, honest elections)--is pulling the corporate charters of these bad actor corporations, or, at the least, heavily regulating them, and busting up monopolies, so that they cannot continue harming other people, gouging us on prices, and destroying the planet.

[Pharaoh]

2. Yeah, personally

I think Chavez is a much more honest and caring person than Bush will ever be..........