Obey or quit, Venezuela's Mommer tells oil firms
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| Published on Thursday, May 17, 2007 |
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By Karin Strohecker
VIENNA, Austria (Reuters): Venezuela has every right to take control of its energy resources and international companies which do not accept the country's terms should leave, Venezuelan Deputy Energy Minister Bernard Mommer said.
Mommer, widely seen as the architect of renationalisation led by leftist President Hugo Chavez, said it was normal for Venezuela to strive for control over its energy resources.
"You get a globalised world of investments, but not of natural resources," Mommer told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. "The natural resources belong to the Venezuelan people and I don't know one people who thinks differently."
Chavez won re-election in December with a landslide victory and Congress subsequently granted him power to rule by decree.
As part of his nationalisation drive to advance what he calls a socialist revolution, Chavez decreed in February that energy projects in the Orinoco belt should be converted to joint ventures with a 60 percent stake held by state oil company PDVSA.
"The law established clearly that the national oil company needs to have control over the operations," said Mommer, who was born to a German father and a Belgian mother in France during World War Two. "We made this clear and we took action."
"It is written in the law - there is nothing to negotiate," said Mommer, a mathematician by training.
On May 1, the government sent workers backed by troops to take over installations valued at more than $30 billion.
Among a sea of workers clad in red helmets and waving red flags, Chavez hailed the move as the end of what he called U.S.-prescribed policies that had opened up the largest oil reserves in the hemisphere to foreign investment.
Asked about compensation for the foreign oil companies involved in projects in the Orinoco belt -- the thorniest issue in the takeovers -- Mommer did not want to comment on details. "Obviously now there have to be quite a few arrangements."
SOUTH AMERICAN RENATIONALISATION
Venezuela is not the only Latin American nation which has accelerated its bid to reclaim resources. Just over a year ago, Bolivian President Evo Morales, a leftist ally of Chavez, ordered troops to seize gas fields in his country.
Venezuela's new policies have given the nation a new self-image, Mommer said. This meant, among other things, that it no longer offered the option of international arbitration in deals as its legal system offered sufficient security.
"We just behave like any developed country behaves, and we said 'no' to colonial arrangements," he said. "If any company insists on that, well, they will have to leave -- and that's it," Mommer added.
For Mommer, oil meant much more to the country than just cash. The oil industry had integrated the whole country's infrastructure and development, and boosted its thin population as immigrants arrived in search of work.
"Let's be clear that we are talking about a natural resource that is national property, and I cannot find one community that is not of the opinion that it should benefit from these riches," he said.
"They may be very conservative people or very leftist people -- they may be monarchs, republicans or whatever you want -- there won't be a difference." | | | | Reads : 37 |
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