In a show of economic machismo, the Chavez government seized Venezuela’s last privately run oil fields. Chavez insists this will return the profits to the people in social assistance and, of course, allow him to more greatly influence Latin American politics and the U.S. economy.
Oil is black gold. It’s also the stuff of global blackmail.
Each day, Venezuela supplies about 1.5 million barrels of crude oil and refined petroleum products to the United States, about 11 percent of U.S. imports - or, put another way, about 60 percent of Venezuela’s total exports. For all of Chavez’s bombast, he’s as tied to the United States as the United States is tied to him.
High world oil prices have made this possible, benefiting Chavez’s political agenda at the expense of U.S. regional influence in Latin America. It also has contributed to our angst at the gas pumps. If you’ve filled up in the last couple of weeks, you know prices are headed toward $3 per gallon.
This only reminds us that the U.S. must get serious about reducing its dependence on foreign oil, which, during times of high prices and geopolitical uncertainty, allows leaders like Chavez to exert enormous political and economic power.
Even though complete energy independence is neither possible nor desirable, in a closely tethered global economy there are steps the United States can take to soften the blow:
Aggressive development of higher mileage cars and trucks. Pursuit of alternative energy sources. Supplementing domestic supply with environmentally safe offshore drilling to blunt the impact of global oil politics.
For the moment, Chavez’s bite is worse than his bark. It remains up to those in charge of U.S. energy policy to keep it that way.
Iran has high potentials for growth in particular in the technical and engineering services sector, but domestic companies do not make optimum use of their potentials, Fars news agency quoted Mehdi-Reza Darvishzadeh, the managing director of Iran Foreign Investment Company (IFIC), as saying, MNA reported.
There are good opportunities for the companies to make investments abroad and achieve great objectives including, expanding their businesses, attracting foreign currencies, turning their companies into international enterprises, and boosting the nation?s security rate, he opined.
As a holding company, IFIC provides financing and financial services and makes investments around the world.
Currently IFIC has ventures in different countries, including Germany, Brazil, Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Yemen, Namibia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Armenia.
Iran and Venezuela: the super best friends?
A joint oil and gas company set up by Iran and Venezuela is all but complete, an official with Iranian company Petropars said on Tuesday.
Ali Talebi, who runs Petropars office in Caracas, said on Tuesday that the joint venture will include crude oil and natural gas production, adding that feasibility studies for the first phase of the project are already completed. “So, a company will be set up next year to conduct crude oil exploration and production projects,” he added.
During a visit to the Latin American state last September, Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad signed the preliminary agreement for establishing the company with his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez. Work was immediately begun on the joint venture, designed to explore for oil in the 500-square km area of Ayacucho's Block 7 on the Orinoco Petroliferous Strip, on the Kuricapo oil field close to San Tome town in the northeast Venezuelan state of Anzoategui.
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The joint drilling operation will allow the companies to quantify and formally certify the deposits in the block, which are estimated to be as high as 31.2 billion barrels of crude oil in situ.
This certification process is a part of Venezuela's Bumper Reserve plan which foresees a massive increase in Venezuela's certified oil reserves.
