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SV Venezuela President Perez walks to table and signs agreement (2 shots)
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SV President Perez gets up after signing with other officials a other applaud
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(Uruguay)(Film) CU Newspaper headline "Chevron" etc.
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GV delegates seated around table PAN to President ANCAP (Government Representative)
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CU Officials look on
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CU Senor Dassain signing for the Government
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SV Government officials
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SCU another Government official signing
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SV and CU Chevron Representative (Mr. Nelson) signing (3 shots)
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SCU Dessain talking to official
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GV delegates around table during signing
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Initials MV/1630


PART TELERECORDING

Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Venezuela formally nationalised its multi-million dollar oil industry on Friday (29 August), when the country's President, Carlos Andres Perez, signed into law a bill approved by Congress the week before, after 76 days of debate.

The signing was staged at a gala ceremony in the Congress building, and it brought into being a new State corporation, Petroven, which will assume responsibility for running the industry, which produces revenue of about ten thousand million dollars (GBP5,000 million sterling approximately) each year.

At the end of this year the assets of the 18 foreign-owned companies, which have exploited Venezuelan petroleum for more than 60 years, will revert to the State. The Government has decided to pay about 1,2000 million dollars (GBP600 million sterling) in bonds to the companies - most of them subsidiaries of the United States companies Exxon, Texaco and Mobil, and the Royal Dutch Shell group. The bonds will be compensation for the profits they would have earned if their concession had run their full term due to end in 1983.

After signing the bill, President Perez told his audience "We will no longer have excuses for our failures. The task is now absolutely ours... but we shall also be more responsible or guilty for the misery of our children, the neglect of our crops and the neediness in our homes".

Unlike Venezuela, possible oil deposits in Uruguay, thousand ??? miles to the south, have not been exploited nor yet discovered. But on Thursday (28 August) the Uruguayan Government formally signed a contract with the United States based Chevron Overseas Petroleum Company under which the company will search for oil off the coast.

The Government's intention to award the contract to Chevron was announced in June by Uruguay's Industry and Energy Minister, Senor Adolfo Dardoso Guani. He said then that Chevron would start drilling its first exploratory well before 15 January next year. It would be at a site in the Atlantic Ocean, between 20 and 125 miles off Punta Del Este, which lies about 88 miles (140 kms) east of Montevideo.

SYNOPSIS: President Carlos Andres Perez of Venezuela formally signed the bill on Friday which nationalised Venezuela's multi-million dollar oil industry. The signing took place at a ceremony in the Congress building a week after Congress approved it.

However, Congressional approval was only given after seventy-six days of debate. The new State Corporation - Petroven - will take over the assets of the foreign-owned companies which have exploited Venezuelan oil for more than sixty years.

Unlike Venezuela, the possible oil deposits in Uruguay - thousands of miles to the south - have not been exploited nor yet discovered. The day before the ceremony in Caracas, a more formal ceremony took place in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo.

The Uruguayan Government formally signed a contract with the United States-based Chevro Overseas Petroleum Company, under which the company will search for oil off the coast. The company is expected to start drilling its first exploratory well by the beginning of next year in the Atlantic off Punta Del Este.