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Williams, Other Services Companies in Venezuela’s Sights (WMB, HAL, SLB, BJS, BHI)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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The Venezuelan government passed a law permitting the nationalization of oil field services companies, compensating companies for expropriating assets by issuing bonds instead of paying with cash. The law could even lead to the annulment of existing contracts.  Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB) appears to be the first target, and Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL), Schlumberger Ltd. (NYSE:SLB), BJ Services Company (NYSE:BJS), and Baker Hughes Inc. (NYSE:BHI) could all be on the list.

Williams will write down $241 million in unpaid fees from Venezuela’s state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA). Other companies that might be affected, according to Upstreamonline.com, are Halliburton, Schlumberger Ltd., BJ Services, and Baker Hughes.

The situation in Venezuela can only get worse as production falls and PDVSA’s debts mount. US companies doing work in Venezuela are probably living in a fool’s paradise if they expect either to be paid for their work or to be able to hold on to their investments.

At least oil company stocks are up with higher oil prices today.

Paul Ausick
May 8, 2009

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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