Follow-up: Venezuela cuts oil sales to ExxonMobil

The Venezuelan government announced on Tuesday that it would halt sales of crude oil to ExxonMobil. The decision comes roughly 48 hours after president Hugo Chavez threatened to stop all oil exports to the U.S. as retaliation for several court rulings in favor of the oil giant.

A communiqué issued by Venezuela’s state-run oil firm tried to explain why ExxonMobil was targeted:

“The legal actions carried out by the U.S. transnational are unnecessary ... and hostile,” PDVSA [Petroleos de Venezuela SA] said in the statement. It said it will honor any existing contracts it has with Exxon Mobil for joint investments abroad, but reserved the right to terminate them if permitted by the terms of the contracts.

In response to the announcement, the CEO of ConocoPhillips said that his company does “not intend to focus on the same path as ExxonMobil” by going to the courts.

Image- TurkishPress.com

Sources- Voice of America, The Latin Americanist, MSNBC, CNNMoney.com