Baker Hughes office seized in Venezuela

Mayor says company failed to pay taxes, briefly closes unit

A mayor in Venezuela seized an office belonging to Houston oil field service company Baker Hughes, claiming that the company “chronically failed to pay municipal taxes.”

Baker Hughes said the situation and tax issues were quickly resolved and the office reopened. But the temporary shutdown is another example of the tensions and uncertainties that U.S. energy companies face as they try to do business in Venezuela and maintain access to what are the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves.

Orlando Urdaneta, the mayor of the western Venezuela town of La Cañada, said on Twitter that city officials temporarily closed the company’s office early Thursday morning. Urdaneta, who did not say how much Baker Hughes allegedly owed, issued a statement to Venezuelan media that another Houston oil field service company, Halliburton, paid its local taxes while Baker Hughes did not.

“We’ve called the owners of the company Baker Hughes to join us

at a table of dialogue to discuss the situation and we can advance negotiations,” Urdaneta said.

Baker Hughes said the tax issue was resolved through the normal legal process and the office was closed for less than a day.

Tensions between the United States and Venezuela are still running high.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration tightened economic sanctions on Venezuela and its oil industry as a means to unseat the Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Maduro has led the country, once one of the richest in Latin America, to an economic collapse and held onto power through an election marked by fraud and support of the military. Urdaneta is a Maduro supporter.

The Trump administration,

along with scores of countries, backs Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó. It recently extended waivers for Baker Hughes, Halliburton, the oil field services companies Schlumberger and Weatherford and U.S. oil major Chevron to remain in the country — at their own risk.

The five energy companies, which are either headquartered in on have major presences in Houston, worked with Venezuela’s

state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA long before the sanctions.

Fearing that Russian and Chinese companies would dominate Venezuela’s oil fields should U.S. companies pull out, the Trump administration has granted permission to Baker Hughes and the other companies to remain in Venezuela, revisiting the waivers every few months.