Venezuela Pays Total, StatoilHydro and ENI $1.8B for Assets

Venezuela said today it has paid 1.8 bln usd in compensation to French, Norwegian and Italian oil companies for nationalizing key oil fields in the Orinoco basin in 2006. France's Total, Norway's StatoilHydro (formerly Statoil) and Italy's ENI gained the settlement after they accepted the book price for the assets Venezuela's state-run PDVSA oil company took over. America's ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips meanwhile remain in dispute with Venezuela, demanding current market-price values for their assets taken by PDVSA.