Posted on 05/18/2006 11:41:02 PM PDT by MadIvan
Ecuador yesterday joined the wave of Latin American governments targeting foreign-owned industries when it fulfilled its threat against an American oil company and took "full technical control" of its operations.
The offices and installations of Occidental Petroleum were occupied by soldiers earlier this week, provoking a furious response by Washington.
But yesterday, a Petroecuador official announced: "We are in control of Occidental's technical operations."
State oil officials are expected to replace Occidental executives running oil fields in the Amazon region.
While the government of President Alfredo Palacio denied the seizure was part of a wider move to nationalise oil deposits in the Andean nation, the action follows a path blazed by the Leftist regimes in Venezuela and Bolivia.
Mr Palacio's government said that Occidental had violated the terms of its concession by selling part of its holdings to a Canadian firm in 2004 without Ecuador's approval.
Occidental is the largest foreign investor in Ecuador and had been pumping 100,000 barrels of oil a day from the affected field in the Amazon.
Denying that it had violated its contract, Occidental said that it had offered the government £569 million in disputed taxes, investments and extra revenues to try to end the dispute.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
The article fails to mention that the Canadian holdings were subsequently purchased by the Chinese...
FWIW, there may be a pattern here.
The Chinese have also been investing heavily in the Alberta tar sands.
All assets in the US of that government should be seized. Any US government bonds in its Treasury should be declared null and void. Any airliners, ships, or trucks from that country that enter US territory should be seized.
Respect for property rights must be reciprocal.
Since when do communists respect property rights?
Occidental ......that's going to hit Al Gore in the pocket book. LOL
My memory keeps telling me that Joe Wilson has something to do with Occidental too but I can't think what it is.
I do find some irony in the fact that Occidental Petroleum was run by the biggest useful idiot of all time, Armand Hammer, winner of the Order of Lenin and friend of Stalin.
Kick them out of the WTO, if they are a member. Withdraw all aid. Call in any World Bank loans immediately and deny them any further finance.
If they want to be socialist, they should not expect capitalist nations to fund their folly.
Regards, Ivan
Can you say Zimbabwe? Result will be the same. They won't know how to farm the oil.
Being socialists, they were probably self destructing and did this to create another avenue of future failure for themselves.
Without failures there'd be no socialists in power.
They create failures so they can justify their seizure of power.
Well, that is one thought.
Another could be that an appeal is made to the people that everyone should share, except the dictator/ruling class should get to share far more for themselves.
Communists and socialists in power always believe OTHERS should live modestly.
"Occidental is the largest foreign investor in Ecuador and had been pumping 100,000 barrels of oil a day from the affected field in the Amazon."
Typical Lefty Loony stuff - killing the goose that laid the golden egg to make down feather pillows for the masses and throwing the meat away!
100,000 barrels a day will become 80k, then 60k and so on until they scream that their ignorance was the product of sabatage by the imperialist and call for the Chavez to bail them out. He will soak them!
Just another reason to get OFF the foreign oil habit, hey, I'm starting my second week of not smoking. The ironic thing is that we have already discovered non-oil, non-polluting, non-nuclear new energy sources; the PROBLEM is : if you give everyone a free KW, instantly they'll DEMAND free MEGAWATTS, then GIGAWATTS. Do the math : with 7 BILLION people all cranking out GIGAWATTS each of WASTE HEAT, where does it go? This is the EARTH guys, there is no "away", the only way the atmosphere gets rid of HEAT is by T^4 blackbody radiation. If you think global warming is bad now...be careful what you wish for. The movie is CHAIN REACTION, listen to what "shannon" says...
Cus' I remember this punk saying he had Bush Sr. "by the **lls" too.
From one slocialist owner to another slocialist owner.
Just think, if we didn't have Democrats, the US could supply all of its own energy needs and these other countries would have to figure out how to make a living.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.