Venezuela to nationalize U.S. firm's oil rigs (Reuters)

Venezuela's legislature has voted to nationalize 11 oil rigs owned by the US firm Helmerich & Payne.The rigs, located in Monagas, Anzoategui and Zulia states, will be taken over by state oil giant Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the official news agency AVN said.PDVSA had asked the legislature controlled by supporters of leftist President Hugo Chavez to take over the rigs after the US firm declined to negotiate a new service contract, unlike 32 other foreign firms.The oil giant is South America's top oil producer.

OTTAWA — Venezuela has sent a formal protest to the Canadian government for Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s “insensitive” remarks on the death of President Hugo Chavez. Harper issued a statement that offered “condolences to the people of Venezuela,” but not the family of the flamboyant 58-year-old leftist leader, who died Tuesday after a long battle with cancer. A statement from a senior Venezuelan government official says a “card of protest” was sent to Ottawa after Harper expressed what he called insensitivity at a time when their country is grieving.

Reuters - Venezuela's parliament declared on Tuesday that 11 oil rigs seized from U.S. company Helmerich and Payne were now state-owned property, formalizing a move by the government to nationalize them.

Reuters - Venezuela will pay Helmerich and Payne for a fleet of oil rigs it has seized from the U.S. company and will "wait and see" whether it nationalizes more rigs, Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said on Saturday.

As Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez lay dying in Caracas military hospital on Tuesday, it appears that he wasn't ready to go. General Jose Ornella says that amongst Chavez's last words were, "I don't want to die. Please don't let me die."

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's parliament declared on Tuesday that 11 oil rigs seized from U.S.

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela will pay Helmerich and Payne for a fleet of oil rigs it has seized from the U.S.

Barely five years ago, when Canadian pipelines could do no wrong and Canada was the darling of the United States’ oil industry, a joke making the rounds at Enbridge Inc.’s expanding Houston base was that Hugo Chavez had been named Employee Of The Year. “He’s done a lot to help us,” Stephen Letwin, who was in charge of Calgary-based Enbridge’s U.S. operation, said at the time.