Venezuela Leads 9 Billion-Barrel OPEC Reserves Gain

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Bloomberg

Venezuela Leads 9 Billion-Barrel OPEC Reserves Gain (Update1)

By Stephen Voss

July 31 (Bloomberg) -- OPEC's proven crude oil reserves rose 1 percent last year, led by increases in Venezuela and Iran, at a time when European and U.S. oil companies such as BP Plc and Repsol YPF SA struggled to find new deposits.

The tally for the 12-nation producer group rose by 9.2 billion barrels to 922.48 billion barrels at the end of 2006, OPEC said today in its Annual Statistical Bulletin. The increase was the biggest in four years and equivalent to all of the proven reserves of Norway, Europe's biggest oil supplier.

Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries sit on three-quarters of the world's oil reserves and made about $649 billion in oil and gas export revenue last year as oil prices surged. The group's share of world crude production rose to 44.5 percent last year, from less than 40 percent four years earlier, OPEC data show.

``There's this lack of flexibility on the non-OPEC supply side, very much needing us to develop all incremental sources of supply: from OPEC, from tar sands, from biofuels, even coal-to- liquids,'' Paul Horsnell, head of commodities research at Barclays Capital, said in a July 17 interview in London. He forecasts oil at $93 in 2015. ``So, you get long term prices kicking in north of $70.''



Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aG3atWz6WMgU&refer=news

[EFerrari]

1. I'm not sure I understand the significance of this report.

Is there a translation somewhere for the oil impaired? lol

[Judi Lynn]

2. Heh, heh.... It give me a chance to include the following report, 2 days late!

Venezuela `Oil Socialism' Boosts Income $5.8 Billion (Update2)

By Theresa Bradley

July 29 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuela's bid to nationalize its energy industry has boosted government income by $5.8 billion a year, fueling a new form of ``oil socialism,'' President Hugo Chavez said.
(snip)

``This is what you call freedom: Past governments couldn't have done this because they were strapped to the U.S. empire'' and the interests of its private oil companies, Chavez told a crowd of red-shirted oil workers and engineers.

`Killing the Cow'

The extra earnings will fund state health, education and community government programs; develop Venezuela's aluminum, wood and cement industries, and buy fighter planes and helicopters to boost the nation's air defense, Chavez said.

He accused foreign oil companies of extracting only the approximately 8 percent of heavy crude most readily accessible from each Orinoco well, neglecting to invest time and technology to develop the deposit, as he claimed their contracts bound them to do.

``It was like killing a whole cow to take only the filet,'' he said in today's broadcast from Anzoategui state, as oil production facilities flared in the background.

More:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=af154SOaO2Ro&refer=latin_america

[EFerrari]

3. I'll be your straight man any day, Judi Lynn!

lol

[Judi Lynn]

5. Thanks for the assist!

[dipsydoodle]

4. You rascal you......it gives me the chance.....

:rofl:

I do hope that Hugo has got good bodyguards. Jealousy can be awful thing especially when it comes to oil.

[Judi Lynn]

6. It's such a peculiar twist of fate, isn't it, that the top oil producers who don't like Bush

and his puppet friends ALSO are shown as fire-breathing demons from the lowest rings of hell, hell-bent on destroying us all, deserving of our pre-emptive absolute annihilation wrath?

[razzleberry]

9. translation, Hugo gets a bigger OPEC quota

OPEC quota is calculated, in part, on reserves.

don't belive any of the publicly published
reserve estimates, BTW

[Judi Lynn]

7. Can I get a witness? This is the first time I've seen spin actually admitted.

When you get into this article you'll see it is being spun viciously, with a VENGEANCE. It was only at the point I asked myself "what the hey?" that I saw this, at the top of the article:

Venezuela's Chavez backs oil chief despite criticism
Sun Jul 29, 2007 4:40PM EDT

Featured Broker
sponsored link

CARACAS (Reuters) - President Hugo Chavez endorsed his oil chief on Sunday despite repeated criticism from the opposition and some government supporters over his management of the industry, particularly over a lack of rigs.

"In the face of so many attacks against (state oil company PDVSA chief) Rafael Ramirez, I will make clear here that Rafael will be around a good while yet in PDVSA," Venezuela's president said on his weekly TV program that he hosted from the Orinoco oil belt.

"We have a tremendous colleague at the head of PDVSA and I call for support for him," Chavez added. "Carry on Rafael, you are a revolutionary."

Ramirez has been one of Chavez's closest aides in recent years, leading the president's drive to nationalize the OPEC nation's oil industry, which provides the bulk of the income that the leftist leader lavishes on the majority poor.
(snip/...)

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN2932940320070729

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

These are the same "majority poor" who were totally cut out of the package in all the years before, with NO access to medical treatment, many of them never having been to a doctor in their entire lives, no heating, plumbing, etc., etc. in their tin-roofed shacks crowded onto the fire-hazard communities around the cities, since no one could get the money together to even have a tiny plot of land to grow a garden, and a small group of people OWNED the entire country, and reaped the oil industry profits themselves.

Is there any OTHER possible meaning to the expression, Featured Broker sponsored link? Please illuminate.

[NuttyFluffers]

10. the horror of wealth lavished on the poor!

it should be lavished upon the wealthy, where it belongs. y'know, to people who can truly dismiss any appreciation of it.
:silly:
doesn't everybody know? money is to be hoarded and ignored, not circulated. i thought everybody knew that!
:dunce:

[Peace Patriot]

8. It must burn the Bushites' buns to have all those billions in oil profits serving the poor!

If Hugo Chavez were doing no other good in the world, that would be worth it.

He and the Bolivarians in Bolivia and Ecuador (and soon in Paraguay) and their allies in the leftist governments of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Nicaragua are certainly doing more than that--they are transforming South America with a democratic revolution--but when I think of the horrendous greedbags in Texas and Washington DC, and their global corporate predator pals, suffering a hell on earth to see oil money funding schools and medical clinics for the poor, and land reform, and indigenous rights, and low-cost housing, and small businesses and worker coops, and community councils, and self-determination for Latin American countries through new institutions like the Bank of the South, I just cheer. It makes my day. And so should it for everyone who loves poetic (and other kinds of) justice.