Chevron Evacuates Venezuelan Executives As Two Workers Face Treason Charges
Following the arrest (and imprisonment on treason charges over a contract dispute with PDVSA) of two of its workers, Reuters reports, citing four people familiar, that Chevron has evacuated executives from Venezuela.
The draft charges that used the word treason, seen by Chevon’s own lawyers last week, may put Chevron squarely in the middle of the escalating feud between PDVSA and foreign oil companies at best, and between the Trump Administration and Maduro’s socialist regime at worst.
The employees, who oversaw the Petropiar project co-owned by PDVSA and Chevron, were jailed when they allegedly refused to sign supply contracts concocted by PDVSA that skipped the normal competitive bidding process, according to multiple sources. The parts mentioned in the contract were reportedly double the fair market price.
The Petropiar joint venture consists of PDVSA’s 70 percent share, along with Chrevron’s 30 percent. It was reported a year ago that PDVSA had offered Rosneft a 10 percent stake in the project—a stake worth $600 million-$800 million, according to valuations of similar deals as reported by Reuters back in August.
With Venezuela already in turmoil as oil production continues to fall in the crisis-stricken country, strong-arming the already-dwindling foreign players in-country may prove unwise.
Other oil majors have given up on Venezuela already, after in mid-2000, then Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez confiscated a 60-percent share in all oil projects in country and turned them over to PDVSA.
Chevron did remove an unspecified number of employees from Venezuela back in August 2017.
Chevron asked other employees to avoid the facilities of its joint venture with the OPEC nation’s oil firm, the sources said.
Chevron has no plans to exit the country
As Venezuelan production crashes, the arrests mark an escalation of tensions between PDVSA and foreign companies.
https:// www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-25/chevron-evacuates-venezuelan-executives-two-workers-face-treason-charges
What is PDVSA?
Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA, Spanish pronunciation: [peðeˈβesa]) (Petroleum of Venezuela) is the Venezuelan state-owned oil and natural gas company. It has activities in exploration, production, refining and exporting oil, as well as exploration and production of natural gas. Since its founding on 1 January 1976 with the nationalization of the Venezuelan oil industry, PDVSA has dominated the oil industry of Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter.
Oil reserves in Venezuela are the largest in the world, and the state-owned PDVSA provides the government of Venezuela with substantial funding resources.[4] Between 2004 and 2010 PDVSA contributed $61.4 billion to the government's social development projects. Around half of this went directly to various Bolivarian Missions, with the remainder distributed via the National Development Fund.[5] Incompetence has led to serious inefficiencies and accidents.[6]
https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDVSA