Chavez Threatens To Turn Off The Tap

Chavez spoke after his return from a lightning visit to Cuba, delving long and loud as to what he thinks are the real reasons behind orders by US and European courts to freeze $380 million in cash and several more billions in Venezuelan assets in the US, the US Virgin Islands, Scotland, the Dutch Antilles and Germany. ExxonMobil on February 7 said it obtained the court orders to aid its arbitration case against PDVSA, which was spurred by Venezuela's nationalization last June of ExxonMobil's holding in a heavy oil project in the country's Orinoco belt. The US major refused to renegotiate its 41.7% ownership stake in the Cerro Negro project to give PDVSA a greater share, and pulled out of the country. ... http://www.platts.com/Oil/News/8523177.xml

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