Isn't it about time for government to take a stand against the greed of Big Oil? In a move that most Democrats, based on their recent rhetoric about oil prices, should applaud, Hugo Chavez is doing just that (WSJ subscription required):
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is planning a new assault on Big Oil, potentially taking a major step toward nationalization of Venezuela's oil industry that could hurt oil-company profits, reduce production and put further pressure on global oil prices.
Venezuela's Congress, made up entirely of Mr. Chávez's allies, is considering sharply raising taxes and royalties on foreign companies' operations in the Orinoco River basin, the country's richest oil deposit. Major oil companies like Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips of the U.S. and Total SA of France have invested billions of dollars there to turn the basin's characteristically tar-like oil into some 600,000 barrels a day of lighter, synthetic crude.
Mr. Chávez, a left-wing populist who favors greater state control of the economy, also wants to seize majority control of the four Orinoco projects and force private companies who run them to accept a minority stake, according to a top executive at state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA, known as PdVSA.
The moves would up the ante in Mr. Chávez's long-running battle with foreign oil companies, which he accuses of making outsize profits amid high oil prices [sound familiar?] at the expense of a poor nation. The stakes are high because Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, holds the world's biggest oil reserves outside the Middle East and is the third-biggest supplier of crude to the U.S.
The Orinoco plan mirrors the terms of a recent takeover by PdVSA of some 32 smaller conventional oil-production projects previously run by private companies. That effort culminated in the seizure of two fields run by Total and Italy's ENI SpA.
Yesterday, Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said Venezuela has no plans to compensate Total and ENI for the lost fields.
If the latest initiative succeeds, it would eliminate the country's remaining privately managed oil fields.
Yeah! Nail those greedy oil company bastards Hugo. Stick it to the man.
What? I am the man?
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