Chavez Says He Won’t Kick Out U.S. Oil Companies

President Hugo Chavez on Monday denied that his leftist government plans to expel U.S. oil companies from Venezuela, althought he added that “there won’t be another drop of oil” from his country for the United States should Washington launch a “new aggression” against Caracas.

“We haven’t kicked out (the U.S. oil companies), nor do we have plans to kick them out,” Chavez said at the cornerstone-laying ceremony of a joint Venezuelan-Brazilian petrochemical plant.


In attendance were Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his Bolivian and Paraguayan counterparts, Evo Morales and Nicanor Duarte, respectively. The olefin plant was at first a project of state-owned PDVSA and ExxonMobil, but that failed to get off the ground.

Venezuela, the world’s fifth-largest exporter of crude and the No. 4 supplier to the United States, reassigned the project to the Brazilian company Braskem.

EFE News Services