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Sunday, April 29, 2007

Chavez Killing the Goose That Lays Golden Eggs?

Thieves are never satisfied with how much they steal:

CARACAS, Venezuela - Forcing Big Oil to give up control of Venezuela’s most promising oil fields this week will be relatively easy for President Hugo Chavez, but he will face a more delicate challenge in getting the world’s top oil companies to stay and keep investing.

If Chavez can persuade companies to stick around despite tougher terms, Venezuela will be on track to develop the planet’s largest known oil deposit, possibly to surpass Saudi Arabia as the nation with the most reserves.

If he scares them away, the Orinoco River region could end up starved of the investment and know-how needed to transform its vast tar deposits into marketable crude oil.

Chavez theft of the oil infrastructure that the big oil companies have built happens this week.  He may get away with this or he may not.

Oil companies need a certain amount of profit in order to develop a find.  If they don’t get that they will simply walk away. 

I suppose at that time Chavez will reopen negotiations with the second tier of possible developers.  The story says that he may strike a bargain with China.  However since the oil in Venezuela is heavy and tar like it’s likely that China may not be able to efficiently develop the oil. 

That would mean less profit to China and Venezuela and likely less supplies on the world market.  Chavez is a thief and a thug.  The way he’s running his country he’s going to need more and more money to keep his head attached to his body.  If I were China I wouldn’t trust him either because sooner or later he’s going to turn on his Socialist brethren.

A couple years ago there was a story on the fact that Chavez was going to enter a long term relationship with China to buy his oil.  So.

If China is buying their oil from Venezuela they aren’t buying it from somewhere else.  We will simply purchase our oil from whomever China would have otherwise purchased from.  These long term deals won’t affect the market.  The same goes if we were energy independent.  If there was a shortage on the world market our price would go up because the oil would flow to where the money is.  That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t develop what we can because it’d be great for our economy to keep that money here.

Funny how the left is so worried about the trade deficit until you talk about the billions we ship overseas to purchase our energy.  Then that becomes no problem. 

Comments

Anyone seriously concerned with the future of Venezuela and its people under the rule of Marxist dictator, Hugo Chavez, need look no farther than Zimbabwe, the former Rhodesia, under the Marxist autocracy of Robert Mugabe.

Zimbabwe, once the richest of the sub-Saharan African countries and the so-called “breadbasket of Africa” is now the poorest, and the most desperately troubled as well.  Inflation is currently estimated by the IMF to be running at approximately 2200%, and the “poverty level” defined at over $900,000 per month Zimbabwean, or approximately $85.00 per month USD.

Of a labor force of 4.5 million, nearly 80% are unemployed.  The country’s GDP growth hovers at nearly -5%.  The country is in melt-down, to borrow a phrase from Jesse Jackson, hardly a free-market conservative.

The comparison between Venezuela and Zimbabwe is obvious, predictably, and monstrously tragic.  Already Venezuela is experiencing food shortages and hoarding brought on by government imposed price controls.

Granted, Venezuela has oil.  Lots of oil.  Zimbabwe has enormous coal reserves, and the largest methane gas field perhaps in Africa.  But Zimbabwe has no technical means to utilize its resources and no foreign reserves or political will to pay for outside developmental assistance.

Venezuela may not be that far behind.


“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

Bat One on April 29, 2007 at 06:45 pm

Leave it to a socialist dictator to screw things up.  They are so dependable.


If you don’t know by now, don’t mess with it.

robert108 on April 29, 2007 at 07:19 pm

Damn you people are stupid. Chavez: finally has his countries inflation under control; economic growth has been astounding; he pardoned the people who tried to overthrow him in a coup; he has put up a constitution that increases the freedom of the people (yes, even poor people) and it was democratically voted through, even had a referendum; wishes all Venezuelans to benefit from their oil, and has made progress towards that; sells oil to the highest bidders; freedom of speech has never been so free, on private TV stations, his opponents call him a kiddy fiddler among other insults, openly talk about overthrowing him, whereas in `free’ countries (no need to name them) this would be illegal.

But still the stupid people say stuff like `Forcing Big Oil to give up control of Venezuela’s most promising oil fields’. They have always been Venezuelan. `Big Oil’ just no-longer get preferential treatment. The highest bidder wins, and the cut the govt. gets from Venezuela’s own oil is now comparable with what many wealthy western countries get.

While I personally am not a big fan of Hugo Chavez, atleast he actually seems to be trying to help those who voted for him. Imagine if presidents in certain other countries did that…


“All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”
“Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.” —George Orwell

Anarchist Vegetarian on May 1, 2007 at 08:07 am
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