EL UNIVERSAL
Venezuelan state oil holding Pdvsa Thursday announced it
refinanced USD 1.41 billion in debt for heavy-crude oil project
Petrocedeño in the Orinoco oil belt -a joint venture
where French Total and Norway Statoil own a minority stake.
The negotiation came as part of Venezuelan President Hugo
Chávez government's nationalization drive launched in
2007. Under the process, Pdvsa now holds at least a 60 percent
stake in all of the oil joint ventures with foreign corporations.
Before nationalization, Petrocedeño was known as Sincor
-a project where Pdvsa owned only a minority stake. In Sincor,
Total owned a 47 percent stake and Statoil a 15 percent, while
Pdvsa owned 38 percent of shares.
Now, the Venezuelan Petroleum Corporation, a subsidiary of
Pdvsa, owns 60 percent of Petrocedeño, while Total's
stake was cut to 30.33 percent and Statoil's stake was reduced
to 9.67 percent, according to AFP.
Before the Sincor's debt was migrated to Petrocedeño,
it comprised bank credits amounting to USD 620 million, as
well as loans granted by shareholders Pdvsa, Total, and Statoil
amounting to USD 1.33 billion, thus totaling USD 1.95 billion.
"After an advance payment made during migration, the total
debt fell to USD 1.41 billion," said Pdvsa in a communiqué.
Negotiations were conducted by JPMorgan Chase, the administrative
agent and a banking negotiating committee made up of BNP Paribas,
Calyon, Royal Bank of Scotland and Société Générale
and WestLB.
Total and Statoil are among a number of foreign oil firms
such as BP and Chevron that agreed with Pdvsa on the compensation
they would be given in exchange of cutting their stakes in
oil projects in Venezuela.
However, US oil firms ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips rather
decided to file arbitration complaints with the International
Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (Icsid), a branch
of the World Bank. The arbitration processes are currently
under way.
Additionally to the arbitration complaint, ExxonMobil won
an order from a British court to freeze up to USD 12 billion
in Pdvsa's assets outside Venezuela. The freezing injunction
-which Exxon Mobil requested to secure compensation for nationalization
of heavy-crude oil project Cerro Negro- was reversed last
Tuesday by the judge that had issued the order.
Translated by Maryflor Suárez
Special Feature on Venezuela's
Oil Nationalization Drive
