Heh, heh, heh:
Venezuela accused Exxon Mobil of legal “terrorism” on Friday after the giant oil company won court orders freezing $12 billion (6.2 billion pounds) of the major crude supplier’s assets in a dispute at the heart of a worldwide fight for control of natural resources.
Venezuela’s oil minister Rafael Ramirez vowed to overturn the rulings, reassuring investors they had little impact on the supplies, operations or cash flow of the state oil company, PDVSA, which has close to $100 billion in assets.
He said Exxon (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) hoped to destabilize the government of anti-American President Hugo Chavez by using the legal battle over the nationalization of an Exxon project to create panic about the OPEC nation’s finances.
Exxon, which last week reported the largest ever profit by a U.S. company, sought the freeze to guarantee repayment should it win arbitration over compensation for the project seized in a wave of Chavez takeovers last year.
Venezuela rails at Exxon asset freeze ‘terrorism’
