The "Statization" of the Pre 2001 Primary Hydrocarbons Joint Venture Exploitations: Their Unilateral Termination and the Assets' Confiscation of Some of the Former Private Parties
Article from: TDM 2 (2008), in Venezuela: The battle of Contract Sanctity vs. Resource Sovereignty (Special)
Introduction
When the 2001 Organic Hydrocarbons Law (OHL) was passed, private companies in Venezuela were able to participate and did in fact par-ticipate in primary hydrocarbons activities in two ways provided un-der the 1975 Law Reserving to the State the Industry and Commerciali-zation of Hydrocarbons: Operating Agreements and Exploration at Risk and Profit Sharing Agreements which where subscribed with State-owned oil companies in the nineties. The latter Law was repealed by the former in 2001, but in light of the general principle regarding the non-retroactive nature of laws (Article 24 ...
