Through the wikileak cables we conform what we always suspected: Ramirez and Chavez were a total failure in the sale of the natural ags and heavy oil crude projects and in the end had their arms twisted by the bid bad oil companies. The Venezuelan oil Emperor has no clothes, in fact, he does not even have rags on.
Just think, the defender of the sovereignty, the revolutionary, being blackmailed by the bad ass imperialistic oil companies and abandoned by his buddies from Russia and China when he needed them. Of course, nothing new here, we had always suspected all of this, after all, the Russians and the Chinese did not even bother bidding for the Carabobo oil field:
“That Russian and Chinese national oil companies did not submit bids in Carabobo suggests the Minister’s travel is to ensure support from “like-minded” countries and to avoid new public setbacks”
This forced Chavez and his combo to give the concession to none other than Chevron. Throughout it all, Ramirez and Chavez keep a straight face, kept lying through their teeth and hailed the success of their failure. What cynics!
The cables are a treasure trove of all the lies we have heard in the last two years as well as the ability of Chavez and friends to lie, for example, on natural gas:
“Senior PDVSA officials are reportedly upset over the failure to solicit bids from international companies for the Mariscal Sucre offshore natural gas project; PDVSA announced it would develop the resources on its own”
No way PDVSA will be able to do that on its own, it has no money to do it.And no matter how upset they were:
“In Beijing, XXXXXXXXXXXX expected Ramirez to focus on “bringing CNPC” back in line and advancing the various Chinese heavy oil projects in the Faja. XXXXXXXXXXXX believed Ramirez’s stop in Tokyo would be designed to seek additional financing for PDVSA, to advance the Junin 11 reserve certification study (Ref B), and to reprimand the Japanese companies for not submitting bids in the Mariscal Sucre bid round”
Well, CNPC never came back in the fold and the Japanese did not advance financing upset over the nationalization of briquette companies.
But the best part is how Italy’s ENI simply backmailed Chavez and Ramirez by threatening to leave thirty minutes before teh documents were to be signed:
“Thirty minutes before the ceremony was tto begin , the CEO of the Italian company Paolo Scaroni, told Ramirez: Take it or leave it, I can get on my plane and move on. Ramirez took thirty minutes to convince President Chavez to accept all of the terms proposed by ENI or rsik losing the deal, according to the cable, the italians said they would not pay the signing bonus, because PDVSA owed ot US# 1 billion”
There you have it, the empty and naked revolution is a bluff and an empty shell, not even its “buddies” like the Russians and Chinese participate in their projects because the terms are not attractive and they yield then to the “imperialistic” companies of Italy and the United States.
The Chavez revolution is simply a farce.
The Devil's Excrement 
December 12, 2010 at 8:31 am
Never trust a “leader” who puts his picture everywhere.
December 11, 2010 at 6:03 pm
OT
A favour: can any of you take a couple of pictures of an average public school in a Venezuelan city?
I got a lot of pictures of Hugo’s liceo and I want to put them side by side.
Thanks.
September 17, 2011 at 8:59 pm
A wonderful job. Super helpful iofnrmatoin.
December 11, 2010 at 5:47 pm
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/12/wikileaks_cable_insult_to_chav.html
too funny…..where would we be without latin american to laugh at
December 11, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Just thought I’d comment on the photo at the top of the essay. Nice one, looks worse than Mao on a bad day.
December 11, 2010 at 10:01 am
Contrary to what movies by Oliver Stone and Marx’s The Capital-based fantasies might tell the ignorant and the incautious…
Bullying, threatening with violence and cheating is no way to do business. In fact, business is anything but that.
Particularly if there are not many business partners to go around (like oil companies with exploration capabilities and contractors) and repeat business is a must.
Chalk one for ENI. Up yours, Copito de Nieve and Esteban!
Maybe if you control your whole isolated world, like the Mafia does, you can pull something like that off. And even the Capos have to be charming and admired rather than violent and hated.
December 11, 2010 at 6:46 am
Some years ago, ENI was kick off in vary badly manners from Anzoategui’s productions oil Camps, near El Tigre. There was some demanded compensation to ENI that PDVSA ignoring.
Now ENI is just taking revenge, This is only a cold dish that now PDVSA has to swallow.
December 11, 2010 at 5:21 am
It had to happen. Chavez has used the flooding to demand a “Ley Habilitante” before Thursday to give him special legislative powers.
http://www.noticierodigital.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=718020
December 10, 2010 at 10:34 pm
This is the original link:
http://www.razon.com.mx/spip.php?article23855
December 10, 2010 at 10:03 pm
El Jefe,
That is just in one bank. I would only be shocked to learn that the total figure of deposits in the U.S. alone were less one billion. Deposits world-wide will rival Bill Gates. Count on it…
December 10, 2010 at 9:52 pm
You know things are screwed up when the Chinese don’t bid on anything related to oil.
December 10, 2010 at 8:56 pm
My wife has a coffee mug with the saying “God put me on Earth to accomplish a certain amount of things. At the rate I’m going, I’ll never die.
I guess Hugo figures the longer he takes to do what Venezuelans elected him to do, the long he gets to stay in office.
Long Live 20th century leachism.
December 10, 2010 at 2:17 pm
That is taken from a Mexican newspaper, but they are not specific and I dont know the reputation of the paper. The bank holding the funds should have reported them as Politically Exposed Persons, it woukd be interestong to see the follow up.
December 10, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Is there any truth to this nugget? It came out of an anti-Chavez Honduran newspaper so it may just be a flight of fancy, but the robolucionistas are known for stuffing anything they can in their pockets:
http://www.laprensa.hn/Internacionales/Ediciones/2010/12/10/Noticias/La-familia-Chavez-tiene-137-millones-en-EUA
December 10, 2010 at 11:52 am
Island, maybe the info that regime try to blocked is the one appears in eluniversal.com.
In wikileaks appear info about manipulation of oil and refining production products from pdvsa.
Apparently, pdvsa export oil in barrels store abroad and then returned to Venezuela to refining and export again. So they count twice by same oil to fat their numbers; and provably, there are some other corruption manipulations in the way in these maneuvers.
December 10, 2010 at 11:40 am
OFF TOPIC:
I have been unable to enter either Daniel’s blog or Venpiramides from inside Venezuela with CANTV DSL.
They are both on Blogspot which was blocked after the AN elections for 2 days.
I can reach both of them using proxies from the US.
Venpiramides has had some damaging info on PDVSA & Daniel has had a few Spanish columns lately.
Don’t know if it’s all Blogspot blogs that are affected.
December 10, 2010 at 9:48 am
Socialists blackmailing and the blackmail blowing up in their faces?
I feel like I am living in Animal Farm. Though Hugo is too talkative to be Napoleon, do you think Ramirez can make a good Squealer?
I would be bitterly amused, except that it is Venezuela. How in the end the Venezuelan government (the next one) will have to privatize PDVSA to a few multinationals in FAR WORSE CONDITIONS. In the meantime, the present ones will have to accept anything and eat crow, they will make a firesale out of this.
In the meantime, neoliberals, wicked, unconscionable, traitorous agents of foreign multinationals and environmental and social devastation (and more!) can rest easy on our consciences, silently (and amusedly) take the blame for what is to come and leave the whole mess behind for another country, until our countrymen quit being imbeciles.
December 10, 2010 at 7:53 am
Tan–my thoughts exactly.
And it’s interesting to watch how some leaders are embarrassed by the information revealed, but at the same time, they find themselves having to defend Assange–simply because of their knee-jerk reaction to defend any position that’s anti-U.S.
It’s a fascinating study in hypocrisy, with a few doses of illogic and foolishness mixed in.
And ironically, the U.S. “outrage” over Wikileaks may be half-hearted at best, because 99% of the leaks so far say nothing to put U.S. stances and actions in Latin America (or elsewhere) in a negative light.
December 10, 2010 at 7:38 am
Miguel, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised by any of this. You can’t expect otherwise from a company run my a failed military putschist and a bunch of inefficient and ignorant lameculos.
December 10, 2010 at 5:05 am
Gweh, thanks for the ‘el pais’ article.
I haven’t seen that wicki leak info in english in any n. american or european media yet, and was hugely grateful el pais had an english translation.
Gotta say, i’ve learnt a great deal from the wicki leaks, and hope others have; like a veil taken of, showing in detail what we suspected in many cases.
December 10, 2010 at 3:25 am
good one
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Rusia/vendio/Chavez/sistemas/antiaereos/sofisticados/elpepuint/20101208elpepuint_43/Tes