Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro moved to increase the military’s involvement in the country’s oil and mining industries with the creation of a new state company that will report to the Defense Ministry.
The company — called Cia. Anonima Militar de Industrias Mineras, Petroliferas y de Gas, or Camimpeg — was authorized to participate in a wide range of oil services and mining activities including the maintenance of wells and drilling rigs, transport and the commercialization of chemicals, according the official gazette dated Feb. 10 and distributed Friday. It didn’t specify how Camimpeg would work with state oil producer Petroleos de Venezuela SA.
“It’s the duty of the national government to promote the creation of state companies that adjust to the new mode of management,” the decree reads. “The state must guarantee a model of productive eco-socialism, based on a harmonic relation between man and nature.”
In recent weeks, Venezuelan authorities have said they want to increase mining activities to generate additional foreign currency earnings. That as declining oil prices push the country to the brink of a default on its foreign debt. The country currently is certifying precious metal resources and is interested in producing diamonds, Oil and Mining Minister Eulogio Del Pino said on Jan. 29.
Del Pino and central bank President Nelson Merentes met with Ahmed Bin Sulayem, chairman of the Kimberley Process organization that monitors the sale of so-called conflict diamonds, to start studies for certification, PDVSA said in a statement on Thursday.
The Defense Ministry will appoint Camimpeg’s board and president.
