Venezuela’s President Chavez announced a new law-decree, which will nationalize the last remaining oil production sites that are under foreign company control. The nationalizations, which affect oil production in the Orinoco Oil Belt, will take effect on May 1st of this year, until which time companies may negotiate the terms of the nationalization. Oil production in the Orinoco Oil Belt, which is said to contain the world’s largest reserves of extra-heavy oil, is currently being conducted via joint ventures between Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PDVSA and a wide variety of foreign oil companies. Here a wide variety of foreign companies were extracting Venezuelan oil under contract with PDVSA. Chavez emphasized yesterday, though, that foreign oil companies are still welcome in Venezuela, just not as majority stake holders.