Chavez Decree Takes 60% Share in Foreign Oil Ventures
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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez signed a decree tonight allowing the government to seize at least a 60 percent stake in the nation's last four heavy-crude-oil private joint ventures by May 1.
The ventures, located in Venezuela's oil-rich, eastern Orinoco Belt, will be run by ``transition committees'' until May, when Venezuelan teams will take over, Chavez said on his nightly radio address to the nation. He didn't specify what kind of agreement, if any, had been reached with the six overseas companies that invested in the projects. He said only that he wanted them to stay on as minority partners.