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Venezuela completes oil field takeovers |
| Home | (The Associated Press) - CARACAS: The government of President Hugo Chávez took over the last privately run oil fields in Venezuela on Tuesday, intensifying a struggle with international companies over the development of the world's largest known petroleum deposit. Oil Minister Rafael Ramírez declared that the Orinoco fields had reverted to state control just after midnight. Television showed oil workers in hard hats raising the flags of Venezuela and the national oil company over a refinery and four drilling fields in the Orinoco River basin. Chávez, a strong critic of U.S.-style capitalism and a leader of the leftist movement in Latin America, planned a more elaborate celebration later on May Day, the international workers' holiday, with red-clad oil workers, soldiers and a flyover by Russian-made fighter jets. |