Venezuela: Chevron, Conoco Cede Projects Operation

Venezuela said yesterday US oil giants ConocoPhillips and Chevron Corp have agreed to cede by May 1 operations of multibillion-dollar projects in the Orinoco heavy crude belt.

In compliance with a decree issued last month by President Hugo Chavez, the companies will form transition committees to oversee the handover of their projects' operations to state oil company PDVSA.

Exxon Mobil Corp has already agreed to pass control of its operations to PDVSA by the tight May Day deadline.

Chavez, who is pressing a raft of nationalisations since a December landslide re-election, wants the state to take at least 60 per cent of the projects that develop tarry crude in the Opec nation.

Although he set the May deadline for PDVSA to take the operational helm, he is allowing the foreign investors until almost September to finalize the terms of their stakeholding in the projects.

PDVSA director Eulogio del Pino said in a company statement the committees were being formed "so that the nationalisation of these businesses should be finalised by May 1 and that the operations should be transferred from the foreign firms to the Venezuelan state."
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