Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has urged ministers to come up with suggestions for possible new taxes on the windfall profits earned by international oil companies, local press reported Sunday.
"I want you all to show me a recommendation for what we could do to impose a tax on windfalls, fruit of the sudden increase of oil prices that has nothing to do with oil production costs," Chavez said, adding that the idea came up from an opinion about windfall profits in the oil sector of Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001.
The tax will represent the fourth rise in oil taxes in as many years as part of Chavez's drive to increase revenue from the oil industry and tighten state control over oil fields.
Over the past two years, the Venezuelan government has raised taxes for oil exploration, extraction, processing and selling to foreign companies.
According to Chavez, the new foreign company joint venture model, under which the Venezuelan government possesses 51 percent of shares, has given the government a payoff of more than 40 billion U.S. dollars in cash and 100 billion in assets.
Implemented by state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA),the model was accepted by about 20 foreign oil companies, but was rejected by U.S. company Exxon Mobil.
Chavez threatened to sue Exxon Mobil for unpaid oil taxes, days after Exxon won court orders freezing up to 12 billion U.S. dollars in Venezuelan assets in pursuit of compensation for its losses incurred as a result of Chavez's nationalization drive.
The president has also barred Exxon from buying, selling or trading oil in Venezuela.
Source: Xinhua
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