Oil companies not running from Venezuela

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has rattled oil markets with tough anti-capitalist talk, higher royalties and oil field takeovers, but petroleum companies operating in the world’s fifth-largest crude exporter are hardly running scared.

With crude prices soaring and oil reserves growing scarcer, the South American nation is still an attractive proposition for top petroleum operators even as the country’s socialist leader demands a bigger cut of the black gold revenues.

Houston Chronicle