Chávez: new directions in the Venezuelan oil policy?

Abstract

During the government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela have been approved two organizational laws: The Gaseous Hydrocarbons in 1999 and the Hydrocarbons in 2001, which abolish all the previous oil legislation and establish the bases for a comparable oil reform in its ambitions and purposes to the one of 1943, that unified the concessionary regime, or the one of 1976, when took place the nationalization of that industry. The article starts by presenting a historical inventory of the oil in Venezuela emphasizing its principal milestones and indicating its different periods. After that the article is passes to check what are considered the most important direction changes in oil policy implemented by the current government. It concludes arguing that it is in this area where the government of Chavez can exhibit its more important achievements in the economic fields. Also, this reform has been in the center of the political confrontation that lives the country form December 2001.