World Bank says Venezuela must pay Conoco over $8 billion

Washington DC: A World Bank arbitration panel ruled on Friday that Venezuela must pay US oil giant Conoco Phillips more than 8 billion as compensation for a decade-old expropriation dispute, roughly the same amount as the South American country's foreign currency reserves.

The bank's ICSID tribunal had ruled in 2013 that the 2007 expropriation of Conoco Phillips investments in two heavy crude oil projects violated international law.

"We welcome the ICSID tribunal's decision, which upholds the principle that governments cannot unlawfully expropriate private investments without paying compensation," said Kelly B. Rose, senior vice president, Legal, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of ConocoPhillips.

The law firm Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP, which represented Venezuela before the panel, did not immediately respond a request for comment.

Collecting the money may be difficult as the Venezuelan economy has shrunk more than half since 2013 and sanctions by the Trump administration barring U.S investors from lending money to the government complicate President Nicolas Maduro maneuvering.

Venezuela faces around 20 arbitration cases at the World Bank, more than any other country in the world, with potential losses stretching into the billions.

The Venezuelan government and its state-owned entities currently owe around 150 billion to creditors around the world, while the country's foreign currency reserves have fallen to just 8 billion.

Meanwhile, Venezuela's government struggled to cope Friday with a massive electricity blackout that paralyzed much of the country as President Nicolas Maduro blamed the chaos on US sabotage.

Even by the standards of crisis-weary Venezuelans, the blackout -- which began late Thursday -- was one of the longest and most widespread in memory, heightening tensions in Maduro's power struggle with his US-backed rival, opposition leader Juan Guaido.

Maduro made the decision to shut down offices and schools "in order to facilitate efforts for the recovery of electricity

service in the country," Vice President Delcy Rodriguez tweeted.

Power supply was gradually being restored to large areas of Caracas on Friday afternoon, as the country slowly began to emerge from the 24-hour blackout.

Electricity supply was also being resumed in areas of Miranda state and Vargas, which contains the country's international airport and main port.

Other areas like the western states of Zulia, Tachira and Barinas — where lengthy outages are common — were still without power.

Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, patrolling the west of the capital Caracas in an open-topped military jeep, said "everything is calm throughout national territory" as electricity workers tried to restore the electricity.

The outage had left most of the country in chaos, crippling day-to-day functioning of hospitals and other public services, according to local press reports.

Witnesses described scenes of chaos at several hospitals as people tried to move sick relatives in the dark to clinics with better emergency power facilities.

Marielsi Aray, a patient at the University Hospital in Caracas, died after her respirator stopped working.

"The doctors tried to help her by pumping manually, they did everything they could, but with no electricity, what where they to do?" asked Jose Lugo, her distraught uncle.

Generators at the JM de Rios children's hospital in downtown Caracas failed to kick-in when the blackout hit, said Gilbert Altuvez, whose eight-year old boy is among the patients.

"The night was terrible. Without light. Total madness," he said.

Emilse Arellano said urgent dialysis for her child had to be cancelled Friday, after a night where staff worked in the light of cellphones. "The children were very scared."

The putrid odor of rotting flesh hung around the entrance to Caracas' main Bello Monte morgue on Friday where refrigerators had stopped working and worried relatives gathered outside, waiting to be allowed to bury their dead.