Here We Go…

Chávez Plans to Take More ControlOf Oil Away From Foreign Firms By DAVID LUHNOW and PETER MILLARD –Wall Street Journal

Long time readers should recall numerous pieces regarding Venezuela’s importance to our oil and gasoline supply and the increasingly unstable nature of that country’s leadership—see “What if Hunter S. Thompson Ran a Country?” from February 7th of this year.In that piece I discussed the President of Venezuela recent call for a million “well-armed” men and women to defend itself from a U.S. invasion. That might have been funny on a TV show, but it is real-life, and in real-life, Venezuela is our third-largest source of oil imports. Now, according to today’s Wall Street Journal, the Venezuelan President is upping the ante in his obvious attempt to gain complete control over the largest source of oil reserves outside Saudi Arabia: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is planning a new assault on Big Oil, potentially taking a major step toward nationalization of Venezuela’s oil industry that could hurt oil-company profits, reduce production and put further pressure on global oil prices. Forget Iraq: things could get very interesting, very quickly, right in our own back yard.

Jeff Matthews I Am Not Making This Up

© 2005 Jeff Matthews

The content contained in this blog represents the opinions of Mr. Matthews. Mr. Matthews also acts as an advisor and clients advised by Mr. Matthews may hold either long or short positions in securities of various companies discussed in the blog based upon Mr. Matthews’ recommendations.