Chevron Corp. and Repsol YPF SA will lead development of two $15 billion projects to pump and refine Venezuelan crude after winning the country's first oil auction since President Hugo Chavez took office 11 years ago.
Chevron, Mitsubishi Corp., Inpex Corp. and Suelopetrol CA will take a combined 40 percent stake in the area called Carabobo 3 area, Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said late yesterday in Caracas. Output will start in 2013 and rise to 400,000 barrels a day in 2016, he said. State-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, will hold 60 percent.
Repsol, Oil & Natural Gas Corp., Petroliam Nasional Bhd., Indian Oil Corp. and Oil India Ltd. will develop Carabobo 1 with PDVSA to pump 480,000 barrels a day, he said.
The Carabobo projects, along with similar ventures with Eni SpA, PetroVietnam and a group of Russian companies in the neighboring Junin field, are central to Venezuelan plans to boost oil output.
“Foreign oil investment is absolutely necessary to develop our reserves,” Chavez told company executives in a ceremony at the presidential palace. “We can't do it alone.” He said the U.S. Geologic Survey found the Orinoco Belt has more than 500 billion barrels of recoverable crude.
The ceremony ended a selection process that began in 2008 and faced repeated delays. Of 52 companies that Venezuela invited to bid, 19 paid for field data and the two winning teams were the only publicly announced bidders.
“It seemed like an act of resistance to the lack of legal security” for companies to abstain from bidding, Carlos Caicedo, head of Latin American forecasting at Exclusive Analysis in London, said in an interview. The lack of response left one project, known as Carabobo 2, unassigned.
Total SA, France's biggest oil company, may have decided against bidding because of the Jan. 17 nationalization of Exito stores in Venezuela, which were owned by Casino Guichard- Perrachon SA of France, Caicedo said.
“It's like a business, where I invite you to jump in a tandem parachute from 20,000 feet, and you say ‘no, I can't',” Chavez, a former paratrooper, told reporters after the ceremony. “Each is free to follow his interests.”
Madrid-based Repsol, ONGC of New Delhi and Petronas of Kuala Lumpur will each take 11 percent share in their joint venture while Indian Oil and Oil India will split a 7 percent stake and PDVSA will hold 60 percent, Nemesio Fernandez-Cuesta, Repsol's executive vice president for exploration and production, told reporters.
Chevron, of San Ramon, California will take 34 percent of its project while the three Japanese partners will split about 5 percent and Caracas-based Suelopetrol will start with 1 percent, Ali Moshiri, president of Chevron's Africa and Latin America unit said. The venture is supposed to form by March 24, he said.
The Repsol venture must pay $200 million of a $1.05 billion signing fee within 10 days of the incorporation, Baldo Sanso, the consultant who coordinated the bid process, said in an interview. The Chevron-led group will pay $100 million of its $500 million signing fee at that time, he said.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Saturday, February 6, 2010
The Long Road to Recovery
Haiti is forever changed. At least 150,000 people, equivalent to the population of Tallahassee, have died. At least 600,000, more than the population of Seattle, are without homes. Over 130,000, approximately the population of Syracuse, have left Port au Prince for the countryside. After a disaster of this magnitude, life does not go back to normal. Still, even in the face of great uncertainty, life goes on. Telecommunications are mostly up and running, some banks are opening, more gas stations are functional, markets and factories are re-openening. Neighborhood committees are meeting and people are attending church services. All agree it will take many years to rebuild. The question is how Haiti can recover and be built back better than it was before?
According to Mark Danner, “Haiti is everybody's cherished tragedy. Long before the great earthquake struck the country like a vengeful god, the outside world, and Americans especially, described, defined, marked Haiti most of all by its suffering. Epithets of misery clatter after its name like a ball and chain: Poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. For decades Haiti's formidable immiseration has made it among outsiders an object of fascination, wonder and awe. Sometimes the pity that is attached to the land - and we see this increasingly in the news coverage this past week - attains a tone almost sacred, as if Haiti has taken its place as a kind of sacrificial victim among nations…”
We have to change this narrative. Haitians are a proud, tough, and strong people with a long tradition of resistance against racism, exploitation, and oppression. Most know that Haiti was the only country in the world to lead a successful slave rebellion to win independence, becoming the first free black republic during a time when the great powers continued to build their economies on slavery. Haitians were forced to pay a steep human and financial cost for its audacity, still being paid by the descendents of idealists and revolutionaries.
This is the country that took in Simon Bolivar, after an attempted assassination in Jamaica. Haiti provided financial and military assistance to him, under the condition that he free enslaved peoples in Latin America. Haiti’s support was critical in enabling Bolivar to liberate Venezuela. Thousands of freed American blacks migrated to Haiti. Haitians themselves fought in the American Revolution. Haiti’s has long been isolated, but its history and fate are entertwined with the United States and the other countries of the Americas. For Haiti to have suffered so diminishes us as well. We feel it and know it should not be this way, we know things should
The Long Road to Recovery (1/25/2010) Haiti Innovation
According to Mark Danner, “Haiti is everybody's cherished tragedy. Long before the great earthquake struck the country like a vengeful god, the outside world, and Americans especially, described, defined, marked Haiti most of all by its suffering. Epithets of misery clatter after its name like a ball and chain: Poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. For decades Haiti's formidable immiseration has made it among outsiders an object of fascination, wonder and awe. Sometimes the pity that is attached to the land - and we see this increasingly in the news coverage this past week - attains a tone almost sacred, as if Haiti has taken its place as a kind of sacrificial victim among nations…”
We have to change this narrative. Haitians are a proud, tough, and strong people with a long tradition of resistance against racism, exploitation, and oppression. Most know that Haiti was the only country in the world to lead a successful slave rebellion to win independence, becoming the first free black republic during a time when the great powers continued to build their economies on slavery. Haitians were forced to pay a steep human and financial cost for its audacity, still being paid by the descendents of idealists and revolutionaries.
This is the country that took in Simon Bolivar, after an attempted assassination in Jamaica. Haiti provided financial and military assistance to him, under the condition that he free enslaved peoples in Latin America. Haiti’s support was critical in enabling Bolivar to liberate Venezuela. Thousands of freed American blacks migrated to Haiti. Haitians themselves fought in the American Revolution. Haiti’s has long been isolated, but its history and fate are entertwined with the United States and the other countries of the Americas. For Haiti to have suffered so diminishes us as well. We feel it and know it should not be this way, we know things should
The Long Road to Recovery (1/25/2010) Haiti Innovation
Friday, February 5, 2010
Report: U.S. is World’s Top Arms Seller, Again | Danger Room | Wired.com
Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the biggest arms dealer of them all? It’s not even close. Beating out Russia and France, the United States once again is ranked first for worldwide arms sales, and it’s fast expanding its lead, according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service.
Though the United States has come out on top for a number of years, it’s share of the global arms market has expanded precipitously. “In 2008, the United States ranked first in arms transfer agreements with developing nations with $29.6 billion or 70.1% of these agreements, an extraordinary market share for a single year,” reads this year’s report.Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/09/report-us-is-worlds-biggest-arms-seller-again/#ixzz0eggK3dfF
Though the United States has come out on top for a number of years, it’s share of the global arms market has expanded precipitously. “In 2008, the United States ranked first in arms transfer agreements with developing nations with $29.6 billion or 70.1% of these agreements, an extraordinary market share for a single year,” reads this year’s report.Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/09/report-us-is-worlds-biggest-arms-seller-again/#ixzz0eggK3dfF
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