Ecuador Government May Acquire Noble Power Plant

[Judi Lynn]

Ecuador Government May Acquire Noble Power Plant
By Heather Walsh

Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Ecuador said it may buy a power plant from a unit of the U.S.’s Noble Energy Inc. as the government broadens state control of domestic energy production.

The government is in talks to acquire the natural gas- powered Machala plant on the nation’s Pacific coast, said Galo Borja, minister of strategic industries coordination. He declined to discuss financial terms of a possible transaction.

“They have proposed the sale and we are interested,” Borja said in a telephone interview yesterday from Guayaquil, Ecuador. “It will be negotiated.”

President Rafael Correa is tightening state control over the nation’s oil, natural gas and electricity production since taking office in 2007. Last month, the government said it began the process to cancel the natural-gas exploration and production contract belonging to Noble Energy’s EDC Ecuador Ltd. unit.

More:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=a5sPAvRQadeM

[Peace Patriot]

1. So, Ecuador, too, has suffered from the Amazon-wide drought that they keep blaming on Hugo Chavez!

"The government is seeking to expand the Machala plant after a drought cut Ecuador’s hydroelectric power last year, leading to energy rationing that ended in January. "

Ever inventive, in the cause of blaming Hugo Chavez for every leaf that falls in Venezuela, the corpo-fascist headlines have thickened, of late, with the latest "talking point" about Venezuela falling to pieces under the Chavez administration (60% approval ratings for ten years now), because this unusual, region-wide drought--which is probably connected to global warming/climate change, and which has affected several countries in the Amazon ecosystem--has reduced the water supply for Venezuela's hydroelectric plants, which has required energy rationing, rolling blackouts, and consequent fervent activity of the government to address it. They just made a deal with an Italian company for a thermoelectric plant, and they are in intense negotiations with various plant managers, labor unions and businesses, to address this problem.

The context of this region-wide drought (which is affecting Ecuador, Colombia and others) is omitted in these hit pieces on Chavez--just as they omit, and HAVE NEVER REPORTED--the very significant achievements of the Chavez government, in education, health care, poverty reduction, citizen participation, human and civil rights, economic growth in the private sector, low debt, high cash reserves, good financial management and good use of the oil revenues.

This bit about Ecuador--that they, too, have been dealing with this drought--jumped out at me, in the article. Damn the corpo-fascist press! Damn them for copying and pasting their rotten, lying script on Venezuela, from Langley or wherever they are getting it from!

[Judi Lynn]

2. It startled me, too, seeing this information floating before us, the very same kind of situation

they use as proof Venezuela's President is a hopeless, dangerous fool.

Not one of those hard-spun articles has mentioned ANY of the other countries are affected by the very same conditions in the very same ways. Not one.

Shows us how much truth these propagandists have for the human beings who look to them for information, and how much respect they have for the truth, and for the profession they are misrepresenting.