Monthly Archives: July 2011

What do you say I just schedule this headline to automatically reappear once a year? Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA now projects 4 million barrels a day of output in 2015, down from last year’s plan for 4.46 million. Plans … Continue reading →

Reuters already has the news: CARACAS, July 19 (Reuters) – The World Bank will hear an arbitration case requested by U.S. company Koch Industries after Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez nationalized a fertilizer plant it owned with the OPEC nation’s state … Continue reading →

Today is the 40th anniversary of Chile’s nationalization of the copper industry. On the one hand, this overtly socialist act — giving the masses ownership of the means of production — may have been a death warrant for President Salvador … Continue reading →

I have learned three important things about Ecuador in the last day: -They make a sauce by pureeing a green plantain with peanut butter and spices and then use that on shrimp, stir-fried with chilis and other vegetables. That sounds … Continue reading →

In the Atacama Desert. Arica gets an average of 1/2 a millimeter of precipitation a year, and this year has gotten a big 3.4 mm. In the Tarapacá region, there are almost 3,500 people displaced by flooding, of all things. … Continue reading →

Venezuela has achieved an important change in international estimates of its oil output. The International Energy Agency, an association of oil-consuming nations, has long been one of the groups with the lowest estimates of Venezuelan oil output. Plenty of observers … Continue reading →

Educational video here from Al Jazeera. It could be better — the “shaft” seems to be an adit, and it would be much better if they said what mine this was, rather than just saying it was “in Colombia.” Anyone … Continue reading →

This article is mostly a rehash of the same story I mocked here. It even quotes Luis Pacheco (aka Augusto Rodriguez? Ongoing chuckle for me…) giving the usual line about how nice it is to be in Colombia now. All … Continue reading →

I’ve gotten a couple notes recently from people who want you, the audience, to know how bad mining is for Colombia. There’s this: La locomotora minera: Brutal ecocidio contra los colombianos . Translation: The mining locomotive: Brutal ecocide against the … Continue reading →

Going to La Paz, Bolivia, where the airport is above 4,000 meters and the main plazas are around 3,700 over sea level, you expect your lungs to suffer. (For those of you unfamiliar, 4,000 meters is about 13,200 feet.) After … Continue reading →