Ecuador's Oil Power Grab: Suing Chevron; Taking Over US Oil Company Production

The Chevron / Ecuador scandal is more complex after all.

The Government of Ecuador's on a mission to take over and run energy production previously owned by American Companies. And where it can't do that, it files a lawsuit of it's own against Chevron for an oil spill that's the fault of PetroEcuador, the state-owned oil company.

The latest news came this weekend, when President Rafael Correa made an offer to buy out companies that did not want to do business with the country in it's original deal to slash winfall profits to just one percent. Now, Correa says he's willing to give up to a 30 percent profit if those companies drop their lawsuits.

But that's not the real news for companies like Occidental Petroleum, based in America. Because of a long-running dispute, Ecuador took over Occidental's production and gave it to Petroecuador, the same company that is the real organization to blame for Ecuador's oil-spill problems of the past.

Ecuador's overall strategy is clear. Give winfall profits to non-American oil companies, but sue and punish American oil firms, from Occidental to Chevron, and make PetroEcuador richer in the process. The Government is playing two sides of the coin: trying to increase oil production, but keep the tribes, who are anti-American, appeased in the process.