Repsol Willing to Invest `Heavily' in Venezuela, Manas Says
May 12 (Bloomberg) -- Repsol YPF, Europe's fifth-largest oil company, is willing to invest ``heavily'' in Venezuela to help the nation expand oil production and develop new reserves, Repsol's chief financial officer said.
``We are willing to invest heavily in Venezuela,'' Chief Financial Officer Luis Manas said during a conference call with analysts today. ``It's potentially going to be an important country for us in the future. The main problem is the availability of opportunities for exploration. If you really want to grow, you will have to go to OPEC countries, and some of them aren't very stable. Venezuela might strike the right balance for us.''
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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=aA7JW54fDGPk&refer=latin_america~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Posted on Thu, May. 12, 2005
Chavez gaining support across region
BY STEVEN DUDLEY
Knight Ridder Newspapers
CARACAS, Venezuela - (KRT) - When former Ecuadorean President Abdala Bucaram addressed a rally last month on his return home from eight years in exile, he vowed to follow a path that he believed would make him popular again: that of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
''I come to Ecuador to copy Chavez's style with a great Bolivarian revolution,'' Bucaram declared to the applause of about 20,000 followers in his home city of Guayaquil.
Bucaram's return was short-lived. Authorities quickly revived the corruption charges that had driven him into exile in Panama in 1997, and he fled the country again.
But his use of Chavez in an attempt to gain political cache illustrated the ripple effect around the region from the Venezuelan's brand of politics - populist, leftist and, much to the dismay of Washington, strongly anti-United States.
From Argentina, where Chavez followers in a poor Buenos Aires neighborhood clamored for his presence during a recent visit, to Ecuador, where Bucaram called for a Chavez-like ''revolution of the poor,'' the Venezuelan leader's ideology is gaining sway in Latin America.
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