Venezuela has confirmed it has paid $1.8 billion in compensation to French, Norwegian and Italian oil companies for nationalizing key oil fields in the Orinoco basin in 2006.
France’s Total, Norway’s Statoil and Italy’s ENI gained the settlement after they accepted the book price for the assets Venezuela’s state-run PDVSA oil company took over.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has threatened to cut off oil supplies to the US if it continues what he calls an economic war. “Take note Mr Bush, Mr Danger,” said Mr Chavez in his weekly televised address. “I will cut off oil supplies.”
British and US courts froze assets belonging to Venezuela’s state energy company last […]

Brazil says it has found another “elephant.” This time it is a huge natural gas field called, Jupiter, which could match the recently discovered Tupi oil field in size. The field has been found a short distance off Rio de Janeiro’s coastline.
While not providing any specific details on the size of the new reserve, Petrobras […]

Ecuador is the latest oil-producing country to try and renegotiate the terms and conditions over contracts, this time trying to impose a windfall tax on Chinese companies in the country.
However the Chinese state oil firms are seeking international arbitration to try to overturn the move, arguing it threatens millions of dollars of investment in the […]

“God is Brazilian,” declared the country’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva after his government’s announcement earlier this month that massive new oil reserves had been discovered offshore.
Brazil’s government and the state-run oil company Petrobras announced two weeks ago that exploration of its Tupi offshore field showed it had enough to increase national oil reserves […]