Latin America: Week in Review, Venezuela
Venezuela Nationalizes 11 Oil Rigs Owned By U.S.-Based Helmerich & Payne
June 25, 2010 By Staff
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavéz.
Today in Latin America
Top Story — The Venezuelan government seized 11 oil rigs owned by U.S. driller Helmerich & Payne, after the company shut them down because the state oil company was behind on payments.
In a statement Wednesday, Oil Minister Rafael Ramírez announced that President Hugo Chavéz’s government would nationalize the Tulsa, Oklahoma-based company’s rigs and said the company rejected government demands to resume drilling operations for more than a year.
However Helmerich & Payne said Venezuela never notified the company about any potential nationalization or expropriation of its rigs. The company also said it was in talks with Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) and willing to enter new drilling contracts in the country.
“Our dispute with PDVSA has never been very complicated and our position has remained clear: We simply wanted to be paid for work already performed. We stated repeatedly we wanted to return to work, just not for free,” said President and Chief Executive Hans Helmerich, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The company said $43 million in invoices was due on the Venezuela rigs and that 14.2 million in currency devaluation related payments.
Minister Ramírez said that Helmerich & Payne’s halted work on the rigs was part of a plot to reduce crude production by sectors opposed to Chávez’s government.
“There’s a group of oil rig owners that has refused to discuss rates and services with PDVSA,” Ramírez said, according to the Financial Times. “This is specifically the case with Helmerich & Payne . . . We’re not going to allow them to sabotage our operations.”
Just Published at the Latin America News Dispatch
- Arizona’s controversial immigration law could face a challenge as early as next week from the Obama administration. Find out more at Alison Bowen’s Beyond Borders blog.
- Peru has topped Colombia as the world’s largest producer of coca leaf, but Colombia remains the largest manufacturer of cocaine.
- Displacement of peasants by armed actors continues to plague Colombia, according to Marco Romero of the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES). Mike Samras reports on Romero’s talk in Washington.
- Also, WOLA announced a second death threat from a Colombian paramilitarygroup for its work with displaced people.
Headlines from the Western Hemisphere
North America
- The Obama administration announced Wednesday that an unmanned aerial drone will patrol the U.S.-Mexico border in an attempt to spot criminal trafficking along the border.
- A 4.0 magnitude earthquake shook the California-Mexico border Thursday and was centered on the U.S. side two miles southeast of the town of Ocotillo.
- Mexican stocks and peso fell Thursday due in part to a drop in global equity markets.
Caribbean
- Alleged Jamaican drug kingpin Christopher “Dudus” Coke was extradited on Thursday to the United States, where he faces drug and gun trafficking charges in New York.
- Cuba’s Buena Vista Social Club will miss the first in a series of three planned shows in the United States because of visa delays, their lawyer announced on Thursday.
- The founder of Black Entertainment Television, Robert Johnson, announced the construction of factories to produce building materials in Haiti on Wednesday.
Central America
- Guatemalan President Álvaro Colom named former representative at the Central American Bank of Economic Integration, Edgar Balsells as the country’s finance minister.
- El Salvador’s President Mauricio Funes sent soldiers to patrol prisons in an effort to fight gangs and inmate-led crime.
- The hyrdocarbons director for Nicaragua said Colombia shouldn’t be allowed to offer oil concessions in Caribbean waters that the Central American country is arguing for control of.
Andes
- The Colombian economy grew at its fastest pace in two years during the first three months of 2010.
- Peruvian President Alan Garcia refused to sign a law that would hand more power to indigenous groups in stopping oil and mining projects on their lands.
- Bolivian Vice President Alvaro García said exports will jump between $6 billion and $7 billion this year.
Southern Cone
- Rescuers are working against the clock to find more than 600 people still missing after flooding and heavy rains in northeastern Brazil that have left more than 40 dead and more than 100,000 homeless.
- In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, Argentine human rights worker Estela de Carlotto, president of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, defended the use of DNA testing to assess whether the country’s largest newspaper publisher’s children were stolen from a prisoners during the military dictatorship.
- Brazilian Presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff of the governing Workers Party surpassed opposition candidate José Serra for the first time in a poll conducted by IBOPE that was released Wednesday.
- The Uruguayan government is concerned that the Argentine government did not provide notification of the construction of a second atomic power plant, according to local press reports.
Image: ¡Que comunismo! @ Flickr.
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