Exxon will Never Again Steal from Venezuela Says Chavez

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3142

Exxon will Never Again Steal from Venezuela Says Chavez

February 11th 2008, by Kiraz Janicke - Venezuelanalysis.com

United Socialist Party Delegates protest
against ExxonMobil in Puerto Ordaz
on Saturday (Gonzalo Gomez/Aporrea)

Caracas, February 11, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez classified the intention of the worlds largest oil company, ExxonMobil, to freeze assets of state-owned Venezuelan oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), as part of a US government backed "economic war" and destabilization campaign against his government and the people of Venezuela. Chavez vowed that the Venezuelan government would not be intimidated.

"They will never rob us again, those bandits of ExxonMobil, they are imperialist bandits, white collar criminals, corruptors of governments, over-throwers of governments, who supported the invasion and bombing of Iraq and continue supporting the genocide in Iraq," he said on his weekly TV show ‘Alo Presidente.'

Last week, Exxon said it won temporary court orders in the UK, the Netherlands, and the Dutch Antilles to freeze PDVSA assets worth up to $12 billion, in a dispute over compensation for a 41.7% stake (worth $750m), in the Cerro Negro exploration project in the Orinoco oil field. The project was nationalized by the Venezuelan government in May last year as part of a drive to gain majority state participation in the country's oil production joint ventures.

Other major oil companies including U.S.-based Chevron Corp., France's Total, Britain's BP PLC, and Norway's Statoil negotiated deals with Venezuela to remain on as minority partners in the Orinoco oil belt projects.

However, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil, rejected the changed conditions and have been in compensation talks with PDVSA. A spokesperson for ConocoPhillips said they are seeking an "amicable resolution" with the Venezuelan government.

ExxonMobil rejected an initial compensation offer by the Venezuelan government and is seeking arbitration. Another injunction solicited by ExxonMobil in a New York court in January also froze up to $315 million in funds owned by the Venezuelan oil company.

However, all of the court orders are subject to appeal and the Venezuelan government is set to challenge the injunctions in New York and London on the 13th and 22nd of February respectively.
Chavez has warned that if the injunctions are not overturned Venezuela will suspend oil shipments to the United States.

"If you freeze us, if you really manage to freeze us, if you damage us, then we will hurt you. Do you know how? We are not going to send oil to the United States," he said.

Venezuela is the U.S.'s fourth largest oil supplier behind Canada, Saudi Arabia and Mexico. According to the latest figures from the U.S. Energy Department, Venezuela accounted for 12% of U.S. crude oil imports in November, supplying some 1.23 million barrels a day.

"Take note, Mr. Bush, Mr. Danger. If the economic war continues against Venezuela, the price of oil will reach $200. Venezuela will take up the economic war and more than one country is inclined to join us," he added.

Nicaragua's President, Daniel Ortega, backed up Chavez's stance, saying the move by Exxon in conjunction with recent comments attacking Venezuela by US National Intelligence Chief, Mike McConnell showed "a clear imperialist offensive against Venezuela."

"What I want to say to President Chavez and to the Venezuelan people is that they can count on the unconditional solidarity and approval of the Nicaraguan people," Ortega added.

PDVSA, which accounts for some 90% of Venezuela's foreign exchange and half of federal tax revenue, has been central to the Chavez government's policy of wealth distribution through funding immensely popular social programs that provide free education and healthcare to the poor. In 2006 the government invested more than $13 billion in such programs.

Venezuela's predominantly wealthy opposition sectors, hostile to Chavez's nationalization and wealth distribution policies, blamed the government for Exxon's injunctions, arguing the oil project "should never have been nationalized in the first place."

However, Chavez pointed to the two-month oil industry shutdown, orchestrated by the opposition in an attempt to oust him from government in 2002-2003, which caused an estimated $10 billion worth of damage to the economy and said there are some Venezuelans that want to destroy PDVSA.

Similarly, Venezuela's Ambassador in London, Samuel Moncada also criticized the "anti-national conduct of some Venezuelans," specifically the owners and workers of private TV station Globovision, "who demonstrated their open and unconditional support" for the attacks of ExxonMobil against Venezuelan interests.

In contrast, the actions by ExxonMobil have angered many poorer Venezuelans who view the move as an attack on Venezuela's sovereignty and who have organized protests around the country. Oil workers in the Cerro Negro project, (renamed Petromonagas), rejected the judicial actions of ExxonMobil as completely unacceptable. Union leader Luis Carvajal said, "This transnational has exploited our wealth, has exploited our workers and violated our rights - all the workers in the Orinoco oil belt support the nationalization."

Stalin Pérez Borges, national coordinator of the National Union of Workers said the injunctions are "a political-economic attack that is part of a plan against the revolutionary process."

The founding congress of the new United Socialist Party of Venezuela has passed a resolution calling for demonstrations against ExxonMobil this Thursday in Caracas and in Maracaibo, in the oil rich state of Zulia.

Venezuela's Chavez threatens oil cut-off indicating he's got HIS finger on the pulse

Tough talk is in response to Exxon Mobil's attempts in court to win assets of state oil company.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- President Hugo Chavez on Sunday threatened to cut off oil sales to the United States if Exxon Mobil wins court judgments to seize billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets.

"If you end up freezing (Venezuelan assets) and it harms us, we're going to harm you," Chavez said. "Do you know how? We aren't going to send oil to the United States. Take note, Mr. Bush, Mr. Danger."

Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500) 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.

"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 during his weekly radio and television program, "Hello, President."

"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.

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 in courts internationally.

"If the economic war continues against Venezuela, the price of oil is going to reach $200 (a barrel) and Venezuela will join the economic war," Chavez said. "And more than one country is willing to accompany us in the economic war."

Exxon Mobil spokeswoman Margaret Ross said the company had no comment. A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Caracas did not return a call.

The U.S. imported 1.23 million barrels of crude oil a day from Venezuela in November, making it the fourth-biggest source of oil imports behind Canada, Saudi Arabia and Mexico, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Energy Department.

Those four countries, along with Nigeria, accounted for 74 percent of U.S. crude oil imports in November, the government said. By itself, Venezuela accounted for about 12% of U.S. crude imports, the figures showed.

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.

Gas prices pull back

Background

Big oil tanks up: Exxon's profit nears $10B

By Matt Krantz, USA TODAY

While drivers have been painfully paying up at the pump, oil companies have been racking up eye-popping profits.

Thursday, ExxonMobil (XOM) became the most stark example yet of how much big oil companies benefited from the huge run-up in oil prices during the third quarter even as two major hurricanes ripped through the industry's Gulf Coast infrastructure. Exxon reported:

• Net income up 75% to $9.92 billion. That is the most a U.S. company has earned from operations in a three-month period and greater than the annual gross domestic product of entire nations including Cameroon and Zimbabwe.

• Revenue up 32% to $100.7 billion. That is greater than the annual GDP of all but just 38 of the world's economies.

Exxon illustrates the energy's sector's tremendous profit amid record-high energy prices. The industry is on pace to earn $96 billion this year — more than what the USA's industrial and telecom companies will earn, combined, says Standard & Poor's based on members of the S&P 500 index. (Vote: Are oil companies' high profits justified?)

And it's not just ExxonMobil that's raking it in. Royal Dutch Shell reported net income up 68% to $9 billion Thursday. Earlier this week, BP (BP) reported a $6.5 billion third-quarter profit and ConocoPhillips (COP) a $3.8 billion profit. Today, ChevronTexaco (CVX) is expected to post 53% higher earnings of $3.9 billion, says Reuters Estimates.

The massive profit gains were widely expected giving the soaring price of oil. The price of a barrel of oil hit a record $70 during the third quarter and, even though it has backed off to $60.80 currently is still up 40% in 2005.

It's not as if the industry didn't have difficulties with the damage of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In fact, ExxonMobil said oil production fell 5% during the third quarter and natural-gas production fell 9%.

But those disruptions had little effect on the flow of oil companies' profits.

"The strong commodity price offset any affect of the hurricane," says analyst Lysle Brinker at John S. Herold.

That's because oil companies were selling gasoline to wholesalers at record prices. The profits from were more than enough to offset any hit the big oil companies suffered when the price of oil and gas rose faster than they could boost the price of gas sold at their own company-owned stations, says Tina Vital, oil stock analyst at S&P.

Vital says the difference between the price of oil and the price ExxonMobil charges wholesalers hit a record. But, due to public outcry and consumer sticker shock at the pump, Vital says the company charged less than their cost for gasoline during the period.

Meanwhile, the oil industry has tried to soften criticism of its current boom times by pointing out the cyclical nature of its business.

Government data backs that up. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that although the 20 big oil companies it tracks earned a combined $22.55 billion last quarter, those same 20 companies, together, earned only $1.59 billion in the fourth quarter of 2001.

In fact, Big Oil was weathering tough times then, reporting combined quarterly profits of less than $10 billion from the third quarter 2001 through the fourth quarter of '02.

Also see;

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by Erik S. Reinert - 2004 - Business & Economics - 352 pages
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and

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You will find tons of relevant articles that are definitive at that last link and don't forget to read Confessions of an Economic Hitman - Hugo read it: so should you!!

Hey Rupert? What Happened To All Those Post-Saddam $20 Barrels Of Oil?

Oil Touches $100, But Will Go Beyond In 2008

By Darryl Mason

yournewreality.blogspot.com

No power king on the face of the planet did more to warp reality than Rupert Murdoch in helping to create the American mindset that backed the War On Iraq in early 2003.

Using his massive media blitzkrieg marketplace control in the US, the UK and Australia (70% of all daily newspapers), Murdoch pumped the always extremely dodgy case(s) for War On Iraq with all the desperate enthusiasm of a Depression-era carnival huckster with two families to feed and a baseball bat wielding loan shark taking aim at his kneecaps.

You must remember what Rupert had to say about how good the Iraq War would (could) be for the price of oil, right?

In case you've forgotten, here's Rupert Murodch, from February 12, 2003, as quoted in the Australian Financial Review :

"The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be US$20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than any tax cut in any country."

Rupert won over a lot of people with that prediction. A lot of business and oil people anyway. A lot of media people, too. Particularly his media people.

They really believed that getting rid of Saddam would let them control the majority of Iraq's oil, and flow another 4 or 5 million barrels a day into world markets. Invading and occupying Iraq was also going to help free the United States from its terror-soaked death grip with the Saudis, who were, and remain, the dominant force in Middle East oil.

How dominant? More than a dozen of Saudi Arabia's countrymen allegedly carried out the 9/11 attacks, and BushCo. paid them back by, errr, bombing goat herders in Afghanistan and flying out dozens of members of the Bin Laden family from the United States under the protection of the CIA. Talk about a hardline.

But even though Murdoch could spin Wall Street, and readers of the financial media, he never really convinced most of the readers of his tabloid print and TV media, even though the pro-war message was relentless and unforgiving. That's why more than ten million people around the world marched in protest against the Iraq War in early 2003.

Murdoch's media ranted and raved and spite bile at all the protesters, even the World War 2 veterans and the little kids with their hand-drawn signs saying 'Please Don't Kill Iraqi Kids'. Murdoch's media labeled veteran and child alike a bunch of Saddam sympathisers and terrorist-enablers, sometimes on the front pages of the newspapers. Before the protests even began.

But they still marched. In cities, towns, villages, even along country roads where the only people to see them were interstate truck drivers. In the United States, in England, in Australia, the United States, Canada, across Europe, across Asia.

Even though Rupert controlled the vast majority of tabloid newspaper markets in Australia, the UK and the US, and he directed them all too, as one former Murdoch journo told me in 2004, "really get behind this now", he could never get the majority of the people in Coalition Of The Willing nations onside for the Iraq War. They didn't have to step in it to know it was bullshit from the get go.

When the Iraq War began on Mach 21, 2003, more than 70% of Australians opposed the illegal invasion and occupation. The opposition was higher in the UK, and much less in the United States.

For most people, already trying to deal with rising fuel price, the only thing the Iraq War had going for it was Rupert's claim that $20 a barrel oil would likely be the result of massacring Iraqis.

So where are we now, four and a half years on from Rupert's infamous "$20 a barrel" quote?

Oil is closing in on $100 a barrel, and the financial media is discussing how oil beyond $100 a barrel will effect economies around the world.

Venezuela is happy, Iran is very happy, Russia is happy, Canada is happy, Mexico is happy. East Timor, if oil prices stay this high, will also soon be very happy. The Saudis? They're fucking ecstatic. They'll have to start burning money logs soon just to get rid of all that cash.

If you're an excess-oil-producing nation (meaning you produce enough to sell on international markets) you're probably burning candles and bowing down before shrines of President Bush, Dick Cheney and the coterie of NeoCons who have done so much in the past few years to unleash so much havoc and destruction and fear and chaos across the Middle East, further destabilising the confidence of the world's oil markets.

Without Bush, Cheney and all those NeoCons and let's not forget the Iraq War enabler himself Rupert Murdoch, the 'evil' leaders of Iran, Venezuela and Russia would not be so rich and powerful.

How rich? How powerful? Well, think about this. Venezuela, Iran and Russia now owe international creditors next to nothing. They've paid off once near crippling loans to the World Bank and IMF. Collectively, they owe a few billion, less than $10 billion, tops.

And the United States? Trillions in debt. Not billions. Trillions.

Who knows? Maybe there really is something in the ultra-weird conspiracy theory that the leaders of Iran, Venezuela and Russia are secretly working in cahoots with President Bush's oil baron friends to drive up the price of the black gold. It would probably make sense around the boardroom table. Everyone gets rich.

Except for you, of course.

After all, we keep hearing about a looming War On Iran, it's always just a few weeks away, but it hasn't happened yet, has it? Flicking back through my files I see stories from 2003, saying that Bush would launch air strikes on Iran "within weeks". That's more than four years ago now.

And look at Venezuela. Chavez has never been so powerful, or so popular. His anti-American rhetoric, and his interference in how American corporations suck oil from his nation, have helped to make oil a very, very unstable commodity. Chavez, compared to the days before the CIA tried to assassinate him, is now leading one of the most oil-rich socialist nations on the planet. And thanks to all that oil wealth, Venezuela is soon to become even more socialist.

Questions.

So many unanswered questions.

What about the new Oil Shock? Isn't oil running out? What if Venezuela cuts off supplies to the US? Is the Iranian president really crazy? Does he actually believe in the 12th Iman? Is he going to sink oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and disrupt more than 1/4 of the world's oil from getting to market if Israel nukes his reactors? What if Iran bombs Israel? What if Israel bombs Syria? What if Turkey invades Northern Iraq and that oil pipeline up there goes up in flames? And what's with Putin? Could China and Russia really go to war with the US to protect their hundreds of billions of dollars worth of new business interests in Iran? What would that do to the world's oil supplies?

And up and up and up the prices go.

Where they will stop?

Nobody knows.

Well, they'll have to stop before $200 a barrel. That's the price where even the most optimistic economists say the world's economies will grind to a halt.

And nobody wants that.

Well, not yet.

"The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be US$20 a barrel for oil."

Thanks for that, Rupert. It's one of the greatest misguided, or false-positive quotes since all those quotes in the 1940s where scientists and radio station owners said "this TV thing" would never take off.

Now, the chaos in Iraq, mostly unleashed thanks to the Murdoch-backed war, is not the only reason why oil is now closing in on $100 per barrel.

But it sure isn't helping.

It's amazing to remember that President Bush, and others, particularly in Murdoch's worldwide media, pushed the line that Iraq would, within only a few short years, be pumping oil to the tune of 8 to 10 million barrels a day. That was how the reconstruction of Iraq was going to be paid for. Before the American taxpayers got shaken down for more than $600 billion. And probably another few hundred billion more.

The Council On Foreign Relations, the Vatican of nutcase war pigs and NeoCon destroyers-of-nations, also pushed the line back in 2002 that the Iraq War could only mean good things for the price of oil. They failed to tell us, however, that when they meant "good things" they weren't talking about oil at $20 a barrel.

How they all must have laughed when Rupert Murdoch said the Iraq War could see oil prices plunge from $30 or $35 a barrel (late 2002 prices), down to a measly $20. That would have showed those damned Saudis and Iranians - wink, wink.

But instead, we got oil closing in on $100 a barrel, and a tank of petrol becoming the sort of luxury expense that millions of Americans, Australians and Brits are increasingly unable to afford so they can, you know, get to work.

A few hundred years ago this pack of clowns now purposely driving up the price of oil to once unimaginable prices would have been hung in the village square and pelted with cow turds.

Now they sit back and watch their stock prices soar. And they're doing it in the US, in the UK, in Australia, in Venezuela, in Russia and across Europe. And of course, in Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Welcome to the New Poverty. It's pretty much like the old poverty, but much, much worse. You'll be poor, you'll be able to only eat shit food, but you'll still have a job. However, you probably won't be able to afford the fuel to get to work.


UPDATE : To be fair to Rupert Murdoch, he did get one prediction right from the days before the War On Iraq was unleashed. And that was this prediction about President Bush if he didn't end up 'winning' the war :

"He will either go down in history as a very great president or he'll crash and burn."

Crashing and burning.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great essay, and so true.

Roger Ailes Brain Tumor said...

Excellent work. Best rant I've read in ages. Murdoch's a lying shitbag.

May the souls of Iraq's dead children haunt his every sleeping moment for the rest of his life.

$20 barrels of oil? Would you like to buy a bridge as well? How about a moon of Jupiter?

Tom TQ said...

"hung in the town square and pelted with cow turds"

love it, I can see it in my mind

wonderful

never stop fighting said...

too late darryl

all we have left is our guns and our right to bear them against the ones who want to disarm us

FUCK THEM ALL!!!!

don't be intimidated

don't be afraid

don't let them deny the rights you have left while you still have them

THEYRE COMING FOR ALL OF US!!

cold dead hands said...

Never Stop Fighting..


Truer words ever spoken


Theyre coming for you me and everyone in between.

American insurgency looms.

Know who you're real friends are today. You need to know people you can trust.

cold dead hands said...

Never Stop Fighting..


Truer words ever spoken


Theyre coming for you me and everyone in between.

American insurgency looms.

Know who you're real friends are today. You need to know people you can trust.

Anonymous said...

Cold Dead Hands


your message was so important you had to post it twice eh?

post it a dozen times and more!

believe it my friends

They're coming for all of us

Lady Broadoak said...

I used to drink with Rupert & Co in NYC .. man! They don't drive themselves and have to pay at the pump or anywhere else. They don't buy Conrail passes or hightail it in from Long Island. They haven't a CLUE what transpires in the real world, they don't care to find out either.

Their minds and hearts are as toxic as BuZh&Co and the other Texas Boyz. And them coming together at the bar was a pretty mutually exciting proposition ..

As long as the bartenders keep pouring their drinks, as long as their medical doctors keep giving them pills to pop, as long as their credit cards keep them ca$hless and smoothe their way and as long as the Fed Reserve keeps cutting down trees to print money on, they are happy. As long as they keep their fancy little restaurants to "dine" in, they'll be in there, hanging out together creating new victims for a very sick system.

To them, individuals are just numbers to move around on piecharts or excel spreadsheets to prove their points.

Murdoch and the neoCONS have this in common - they AREN'T nice (to anyone at all), they couldn't care less about anybody but themselves and those they get stoned with.

When bar closing time hits and they are aggressive - stay outta their WAY. They'll take you down or get someone to do it for them.

Never let these guyz drink on YOUR side of the bar, NEVER.

If someone suggests you believe a SINGLE word they say, have a talk with the bartender who will assure you that they aren't gentlemen!!

It's high time these drunken idiots were INTERVENED and put away, as their truly erratic behavior and delusions were exposed and shown for the INSANITY it really is.

As for only having our guns left? They're controlling the ammo supply. What good are the gunz?

Hug your families instead. Start doing arts and crafts. Talk a nice long walk. Learn to enjoy watching seeds grow. Keep an inner smile. Listen to Meatloaf .. they cannot rock N roll ..

You've done a fine job with their total insanity in this essay.

It's time to 86 them once and for all!! or as we say in Canada, TURF THEM OUT!

Cheers! (as I hoist a V8 cocktail salute to you)