MANAGUA (Reuters) - A Nicaraguan judge has embargoed assets of U.S. oil company Esso Standard Oil in a tax payment dispute between the government of leftist President Daniel Ortega and the unit of giant ExxonMobil Corp, a government aide said on Tuesday.
As of Sunday news coverage here in Managua, conflicting reports of various kinds of negociations were available online, but the most Esso will say is that they have received "positive signals" that the oil storage facilities taken over by the government will be returned as early as tomorrow. Also reported was an agreement between Esso and Venezuela to buy and refine its crude oil.
More English coverage here and here.
In the local papers, it was reported Wednesday that the organization of private business owners COSEP has sent a letter to President Ortega urging quick resolution of the matter.
An editorial written by a member of the Liberal Constitutional Party in the more conservative daily La Prensa calling this situation "Nicaragua's category 5 hurricane," describing the judicial action taken to allow the embargo as a political move which will hurt foreign corporate investment in the country.
The US ambassador's own office here was quoted as saying, "The actions taken by Nicaraguan authorities have the potential to seriously harm economic relations between the US and Nicaragua."
This morning (Thursday) La Prensa led with the following:
"La desesperación del Gobierno por obtener combustible barato o recursos para operar las generadoras estatales de energía y evitar que la situación de los cortes se empeore, fue lo que hizo que la Dirección General de Servicios Aduaneros (DGA) y el sistema judicial trabajaran en conjunto para ejecutar la toma del plantel Corinto Uno de la empresa Esso Standard Oil, según fuentes que han participado en las frenéticas negociaciones ..."
"The desperation of the government to obtain cheap combustible or resources to operate state energy generators and avoid the worsening of the power outages was what caused ADUANAS (customs) and the judicial system to work together to execute the takeover of the Esso Standard Oil storage facility, according to sources participating in the negotiations."
The article goes on to describe how apparently a ship with a large quantity of oil from Venezuela arrived at the Corinto port last week, but there was not enough storage space in the other oil storage facilities in the port town for all of it without ExxonMobil's agreement to store some of the oil. This is where the charges of unpaid taxes comes in. ExxonMobil says they did not want to be storing Venezuelan oil that their company themselves did not transport, so the government took them over on a judicial order saying the company had not paid the proper importation taxes. However, the company itself claims that no such taxes are required, as the crude they imported can be imported tax-free.
And so the plot thickens.
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