EL UNIVERSAL

The Venezuelan state took Tuesday the operations from partnership agreements in the hands of foreign big oil companies in Orinoco oil belt, reported Minister of Energy and Petroleum Rafael Ramírez.
 
Shortly after midnight, Venezuela "is to exercise its right to manage natural resources on people's behalf," said Minister Ramírez, also the head of state-run oil holding Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa), during a ceremony attended by oil-sector workers at Jose Cryogenic Complex, eastern Anzoátegui state, Efe reported.

"Welcome to the new Pdvsa," he told workers, who will be now part of the staff of new partnerships between foreign companies and the government as major stakeholder.

During the live broadcast on all domestic TV channels, the employees replaced as a symbolic token their blue helmets with red ones, the color of Pdvsa and Chavezism.

Ramírez advised that President Hugo Chávez was to attend in Jose Complex a mass ceremony to mark the State seizure of the last private oil fields in Orinoco belt.

Five out of six multinationals concerned and Pdvsa entered last Wednesday into a preliminary agreement to replace the last "strategic partnerships" operating in the Orinoco belt with joint ventures.

US ChevronTexaco and ExxonMobil, British Petroleum (BP), French Total and Norwegian Statoil initialed the agreements on handover of the operations.

Next June 26th is the deadline for Pdvsa private partners to make a deal on their participation in the new joint ventures, where Pdvsa will have over 60 percent.

Chávez announced last January the "nationalization" of strategic partnerships in accordance with the hydrocarbons law enacted under the 1999 Constitution.

Since then, the ruler had repeated that on May 1st, the government would seize the oil fields in the Orinoco belt covering 55,314 square kilometers to the north of river Orinoco.

The projects affected by the action include Petrozuata, Sincor, Ameriven, Cerro Negro and Jose Cryogenic Complex.

In April 2006, almost twenty multinationals agreed on turning their operational agreements executed in the nineties into joint ventures controlled by Pdvsa.

Translated by Conchita Delgado