Venezuela seizes oil rigs owned by US company

Venezuela seizes oil rigs owned by US company

news.yahoo.com

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuela's government has seized control of 11 oil rigs owned by U.S. driller Helmerich & Payne, which shut them down because the state oil company was behind on payments.

Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez announced that Venezuela would nationalize the Tulsa, Oklahoma-based company's rigs. He said in a statement Wednesday that Helmerich & Payne had rejected government demands to resume drilling operations for more than a year.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Just saw this on the news about 10 minutes ago. Im not sure how this will all turn out. It might not even be that big of a deal, just buisness's arguing.

There's still not that much information so far about this, since its pretty new.

From what Ive read, it looks like the state-owned companies owe the American company millions. Im not sure how the US will deal with this, but it could go a number of ways.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 24-6-2010 by buni11687]

These are fighting words for many. Seeing how much the government loves the oil companies, I think that this is not going to be taken lightly.


[edit on 24-6-2010 by Elieser]

This is theft by a thief, pure and simple. Chavez is a what he is. He is likely going belly up before long. Buying the Dictatorship of a country can't be cheap.

Obama won't do anything. I'd expect Chavez is one of his personal hero's.

I think this was already posted this morning...here

Mexico has done this sort of thing in the past. It outraged oilmen at the time and the US goverment did nothing. Now that oilmen own the US goverment I bet there will be an all out attack on little Venezuela.

You know, part of me wishes Obama would take a page out of Chavez's playbook and do this to BP.

Sensational - I love it when the US gets the finger from Chavez

I might look into this more - but this looks purely like the US companies using extortion - so Chavez has just siezed the rigs - nice.

Gotta love the timing though. Problems in the Gulf. Problems with Iran. Not to mention the WoT. The US is spread pretty thin these days.

But remember last year when he just waltzed in and took over the Hilton Inn?

Never heard of a peep of objection to that. Everybody just grumbled over his audacity, and moved on.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


Opps, didnt even see it. Kind of got buried under everything else I guess.

Originally posted by Blaine91555
This is theft by a thief, pure and simple. Chavez is a what he is. He is likely going belly up before long. Buying the Dictatorship of a country can't be cheap.

Obama won't do anything. I'd expect Chavez is one of his personal hero's.

Indeed Chavez is what he is - a fricken legend, giving the finger to the scum in Washington.

He is uniting South America - the scum are trying to divide them, but everyone loves Chavez - they won't grovel at the feet of the US controllers. Go go Chavez - fricken superhero!

[edit on 24-6-2010 by Amagnon]

reply to post by Someone336


You want the government to take over businesses? Which Obama has already done more than once?

Google Greece. See the results of that mentality. Greece is now a slave to the Soros crowd. Last I looked they are all in the same Party as Obama.

Chavez is taking advantage of peoples anger at one oil company to steal the 100 million he owes them and to steal their equipment. At thief is a thief.

Chavez spent all his peoples money buying them and their votes and now he is in deep crap.

Obama is slowly doing the same. First the banks, then the auto industry and now he is after the oil companies. Thank God a judge shut him down this morning, which should be the main story on the front page of ATS.

Expect more like this under the cover of the Gulf Spill. The Left has control of the world, they surpassed the Right in wealth years ago and now they are taking over everything.

I actually noticed a poster today who thinks the Right has all the money They missed the memo years ago when per capita wealth on the Left, blew the doors off the supposed wealth on the Right. Not that I care about either, I just like truth.

You suppose Carter is down there hanging out?

Originally posted by buni11687
reply to post by ~Lucidity

 

Opps, didnt even see it. Kind of got buried under everything else I guess.

Thats why you should always use the search tool before posting...

reply to post by Amagnon


Whoa, extortion? Are you serious? So if someone works for you, and you decide to stop paying them, and they quit working for you as a result, you'd call their behavior extortion?

I'm not trying to extoll the virtues of big oil, but that argument is beyond stupid... God I hope you're not a small business owner.

I kind of see this as theft...but then again, Im not sure what all is going on in Venezuala. There's a possibility of more deep stuff going on than just the fact that Chavez is taking over the rigs, while in debt to the company that owned them originally. There may be more stuff under the cover.

If the people of his country like what hes doing....then I can see him doing it for the good of the country, but if its just to wipe off part of his debt, then I think its just plain theft and wrong.

I would suspect that by simple fact of operating in Venezuela, or any other country in which there is a threat that the foreign company may be nationalized, there is a business plan in place to account for that potential liability. Business will have taken this possibility into consideration before moving in...

reply to post by Blaine91555


Even though we run the risk of derailing this thread, I'll explain how I feel about it.

I don't advocate the full nationalization of industry. However, I am anti-corporatism, and so the very existence of industry giants such BP is something that I detest. Corporations run the Left and the Right as a means to simply put profits over people time and time again. We should be implementing stronger and stricter anti-trust laws to break these corporate giants down into to small pieces so an actual semblance of a market can take place.

However, google the successes of nationalized industry in the northern European countries, which include nationalized oil.

I see no reason why limited nationalized industry, adhering to the same rules and regulations as the rest of the market, can't be allowed to participate in a competitive market with private industry. Profits could help to fund public works instead of sitting in offshore tax havens and the deepest recesses of corporate pocketbooks, and the added competition could further drive down prices. Win-win?

On a side note, I would argue that the commitment Soros showed in funding anti-Communist groups in the 1970s and he assistance in helping post-Communist eastern European countries transfer into the world of global capitalism pretty much discredits him as the socialist arch-conspirator the right-wing media depicts him as.

[edit on 24-6-2010 by Someone336]

Originally posted by FreshAir
I would suspect that by simple fact of operating in Venezuela, or any other country in which there is a threat that the foreign company may be nationalized, there is a business plan in place to account for that potential liability. Business will have taken this possibility into consideration before moving in...

BUT the point is, who would be willing to invest in that country in the future? This will take some time but Chavez is eventually going to be bitten on the ass with the way he's doing things. Foreign investment goes, a country collapses. The people get pissed. We may actually see him lynched.

No country is an island anymore. You need more. Good luck Hugo.

It seems to me that the USA is being challenged simultaneously on several fronts now, N. Korea (Chinese involvement), Israel/Iran (Chinese interests)/Iraq/M.E...Afghanistan (Chinese interests), Taiwan (Chinese interests), China's increasing pressuring re: currency and military co-operation (de-linking strategically), and again in Venezuela (another China ally?)

Judging by the recent PR from USA/Russia, Russia are - typically perhaps - hedging their bets - not sure whether China will continue to work with them or possibly become a major strategic threat once the competition with the USA is played out...I think Europe may be seen as hedging their bets to some extent too?

This all seemed to hot-up significantly after the initial major US banking/global economic collapse. Anyone else see a pattern?