VOL. XLV

No 1

7-January-2002

VENEZUELA

Venezuela: A New Legal And Institutional Framework In Oil

By Bernard Mommer

The following article was writtenexclusively for MEES by Bernard Mommer, a consultant with OPEC in Vienna.

The old legal and institutionalframework in Venezuelan oil was a legacy of the protracted and complex processof nationalization that culminated in 1975 in the Petroleum NationalizationLaw. Putting an end to the concession system, this law was widely supposed torepresent the last,...