Venezuela takes back 10,700 sq. mi.

Venezuela reclaimed more than 27,000 square kilometers (10,700 square miles) in potential drilling acreage from private oil companies in March by requiring them to join new state-controlled joint ventures, a local daily reported April 17.

Amid efforts by the Venezuelan government to take greater control of the oil industry and boost its share of revenues, private companies operating 32 oil fields were required to form joint ventures with the state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA. Under the new terms, PDVSA took at least a 60 percent stake in each field, hiked taxes and royalties, and took back drilling acreage that it claimed the companies had failed to invest in.

On April 17, the El Tiempo newspaper cited PDVSA Director Eulogio del Pino saying that companies were compensated for changes.

Unnamed foreign companies received a total of US$900 million in “investment bonds” that they might be able to use in new joint ventures to develop the oil acreage that was seized, El Tiempo said.

Del Pino did not name the companies.

Oil companies such as Chevron, Brazil’s Petrobras, and Shell lost oil acreage to PDVSA during the contract negotiations.

—The Associated Press