Ecuador one contract away from owning oil production and profits

Correa's moving to get more oil money 

While Amazon Watch and Steven Donziger yell and scream about American Chevron in an attempt to extort billions while claiming to represent Ecuador's "indigenous people," Ecuador President Rafael Correa is just one signed contract away from that country successfully nationalizing revenue from its oil industry.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Administration of Ecuador President Rafael Correa seeks to replace current oil production-sharing contracts with service contracts that would "see oil companies getting a production fee, while the government would own 100 percent of oil and gas produced."

In other words, Ecuador, which has 34 active oil contracts, would take more money from Italian, Brazilian, Canandian, Chinese, and European, and other oil companies, as Amazon Watch claims American Chevron's responsible for environmental damage from oil production (there are no large American oil producers as Ecuador has either taken over production or kicked them out of the country.)

It's Ecuador's effort to offset declining revenues from oil. Production has dropped 17 percent in one year.

The new service contract model law will have two different fees, one for production and the other for new investment to increase output. Nothing has been said about using the extra revenue for environmental cleanup.

The contracts are expected to be signed and implemented by August 2010. If the companies don't sign the contracts, they would be subject to state seizure of their oil assets.   This was done to American Occidental Petroleum in 2007, when Ecuador took everything from oil facilities to luxury cars, and had fist-fights over those.  In 1992, Chevron and Ecuador negotiated an agreement for Ecuador to take over Chevron's oil production.

Again, why doesn't Amazon Watch sue Ecuador?