Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com

Venezuela to pay CMS $106 million in utility takeover
02-14-2007

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters): Venezuela said on Tuesday it will pay US-based CMS Energy Corp. $106 million in its takeover of local electricity company Seneca as part of a nationalisation drive by leftist President Hugo Chavez.

At a ceremony to sign the sale agreement, Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said the deal involved purchasing CMS's 70 percent stake in the electricity company as well as payment for assets CMS has in Venezuela.

CMS Vice President Joseph Tomasik said both sides compromised in reaching a deal that he expected would be completed by March 31.

CMS has invested $180 million in the electric system since 1999, he added.

Seneca, which was created in 1998, operates on Venezuela's Caribbean island of Margarita.

Chavez's nationalisation drive has already involved in the last few days the takeover of the country's largest private electricity company and the No. 1 telecommunications company.

Flush with oil export revenue, the anti-US president has also vowed to take at least a 60 percent stake in multibillion dollar projects run by foreign companies such as Exxon Mobil in the OPEC nation's crude reserves in the Orinoco belt.