We all remember our dear commandant-lieutenant-leader-president-macho-Bolívar 2.0 talking about the evil Empire and the Devil at the United Nations headquarters. The naive observer would think the US magnates and Venezuela's red-clad warriors are at a clinch with each other. Reality is a wee bit different.
Take the news coming from Norwegian Aftenposten about the Wikileaks. It seems the Norwegians were not very happy at the way US Chevron and Spanish Repsol decided to bid for the development of the Carabobo field.
Former US ambassador Patrick Duddy reported to Washington that Anders Hatteland, Statsoil representative in Venezuela, was mad about the way Chevron and Repsol reacted. The Venezuelan government had been making the rules of the game more and more difficult and the Norwegians were hoping for an international boycot of the tender. French Total and Chinese CNPC decided not to take part in that tender. But Chevron and Repsol did, in spite of what their past experience had been. The Norwegian said US Chevron is giving legitimacy to the Venezuelan government. I repeat: the Norwegian said US Chevron is giving legitimacy to the Venezuelan government. And it seems the "bonus" US Americans paid to Venezuelan authorities did some magic, even if that was not the only reason why they got that field.
The US reporter also said the Venezuelan government gave more money to Statesoil for its shares in one of the fields than reported in the media (130 million dollars).
Stay tuned, more funny stuff is to come.
Ps. thanks to a Norwegian friend
Ps 2. Journalist Setty linked to this post, but there is nobody like him to give a comprehensive background on energy matters in Venezuela.
Take the news coming from Norwegian Aftenposten about the Wikileaks. It seems the Norwegians were not very happy at the way US Chevron and Spanish Repsol decided to bid for the development of the Carabobo field.
Former US ambassador Patrick Duddy reported to Washington that Anders Hatteland, Statsoil representative in Venezuela, was mad about the way Chevron and Repsol reacted. The Venezuelan government had been making the rules of the game more and more difficult and the Norwegians were hoping for an international boycot of the tender. French Total and Chinese CNPC decided not to take part in that tender. But Chevron and Repsol did, in spite of what their past experience had been. The Norwegian said US Chevron is giving legitimacy to the Venezuelan government. I repeat: the Norwegian said US Chevron is giving legitimacy to the Venezuelan government. And it seems the "bonus" US Americans paid to Venezuelan authorities did some magic, even if that was not the only reason why they got that field.
The US reporter also said the Venezuelan government gave more money to Statesoil for its shares in one of the fields than reported in the media (130 million dollars).
Stay tuned, more funny stuff is to come.
Ps. thanks to a Norwegian friend
Ps 2. Journalist Setty linked to this post, but there is nobody like him to give a comprehensive background on energy matters in Venezuela.
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