Catholic Online Forum

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuela's government has seized control of 11 oil rigs owned by U.S. driller Helmerich & Payne, which shut them down because the state oil company was behind on payments.

Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez announced that Venezuela would nationalize the Tulsa, Oklahoma-based company's rigs. He said in a statement Wednesday that Helmerich & Payne had rejected government demands to resume drilling operations for more than a year.

Helmerich & Payne announced in January 2009 that it was stopping operations on two of its drilling rigs, because Venezuela's state-run oil company, PDVSA, owed the company close to $100 million. It said it would shut down the rest of its rigs by the end of July as contracts expired unless PDVSA began to make good on its debts.

The company said Thursday that PDVSA's debt was $43 million as of June 14.

Referring to Helmerich & Payne, Ramirez said: "There's a group of drill owners who have refused to discuss service prices and have preferred to have this equipment put away for a year."

Helmerich reports 3Q loss on Venezuelan takeover

(AP) – Jul 29, 2010

TULSA, Okla. — Oil and gas drilling company Helmerich & Payne Inc. said Thursday it lost $36.7 million in its fiscal third quarter as it wrote off assets that the Venezuelan government took over.

The loss of 34 cents per share compares with a net profit of $53 million, or 50 cents a share, in the same quarter a year ago.

Helmerich said it recorded an impairment charge of $102.7 million due to the Venezuelan government's June 30 action.

September 27, 2011

TULSA — Helmerich & Payne Inc., which operated in Venezuela for more than five decades, is suing for hundreds of millions of dollars owed after the South American nation broke drilling contracts and seized rigs last year, a spokesman for the Tulsa-based firm said Monday.

The lawsuit, filed last week in Washington, D.C., federal court, seeks $32 million in back payments from previous services for Venezuela and “hundreds of millions” on the value of 11 rigs seized in June 2010, said Steve Mackey, general counsel for Helmerich & Payne.

“We're seeking damages for the taking of our drilling business and also breach of contract,” he said.

Helmerich & Payne's problems with the Venezuelan government and the national Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) oil company go back years. The nationalized industry missed numerous payments on existing drilling contracts operated by the Tulsa firm.

“They got more and more behind,” Mackey said. “We were trying to negotiate with them on solutions up to the time they took our rigs.”

9/06/2012

The Venezuelan government has seized a U.S. flagged ship and detained its captain for more than a week.

Since August 29 the ship Ocean Atlas has been at port in Maracaibo, Venezuela, where it docked to unload a cargo of equipment. Yet after four hours in port, the ship was boarded and searched by armed security personel, and the captain was detained on suspicion of trafficking in arms or drugs. The captain has been identified as Jeffrey Michael Raider, 45, of Texas.

The rest of the crew of 15 Americans has remained on board under guard. According to a well-placed source arrest warrants have been issued for all of the crewmembers, who are to be taken off the ship for questioning.

Incredibly, my Forbes colleague Jeff Bercovici has been in touch over email with one of the crewmen, Russell Macomber, who has managed to post updates to his Facebook account while under detention.

In a sardonic tone, Macomber even relayed that when Venezuelan authorities raided the Ocean Atlas they stole cartons of cigarettes, ate the crew’s ice cream and let their dogs defecate on the deck. Macomber writes that he would like nothing more than an airdrop of Budweiser.