NewsFlashVenezuela may nationalise petchems

27 July 2007 21:57  [Source: ICIS news]

By Joe Kamalick

WASHINGTON (ICIS news)--Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez may nationalise as many as 15 petrochemical joint ventures or force renegotiation of agreements to ensure majority control by his government, sources said on Friday.

Venezuela’s ambassador to the US, Bernardo Alvarez Herrera, was said by sources to have outlined the takeover move in comments made this week to private parties in Washington.

US sources in Washington and the Venezuelan capital Caracas said they are awaiting clarification from the Chavez government.

According to reliable sources, the Caracas government wants to ensure that state-owned petrochemicals giant Pequiven is either the majority owner or the largest single shareholder in each of the 15 joint ventures. 

The businesses were not named.

Pequiven currently has minority shareholdings in each of the companies, the sources said, with less than 20% or 30% of shares in each venture.

Pequiven was said to be privately opposed to Chavez’s plan, fearing that such a takeover of foreign-held petrochemical interests would discourage any further foreign investment in Venezuela’s chemicals sector and cut off needed technology advances.

US companies are major partners in several of the joint ventures, sources said, but not in all 15.

The reported move by Chavez to wrest control of privately held chemical facilities follows similar actions by the Venezuelan leader to nationalise oil and natural gas interests in Venezuela held by foreign firms.

Earlier this month Chavez said he was preparing a “petrochemical revolution”.

Speaking in Spanish, he said:  “May it rain upon the country, by means of gas pipelines and medium and large processing plants, all an industrial revolution, the Petrochemical Revolution.”

Referring to Venezuela’s petrochemical complexes, Chavez said he intended to follow, in his words, the Iranian model of using raw materials to stimulate development in destitute areas.

He said the government was studying the expansion and integration of the country’s petrochemical complexes, and the creation of a “large” new complex to make use of feedstock from the Orinoco production areas.

“We are going to be a power on the continent and in the world; in petroleum, in gas, in petrochemicals and industry. Do not have the slightest doubt,” he said.

 

By: Joe Kamalick
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