U.S. majors seek talks to resolve Venezuela disputes

By Chris Baltimore and Michael Erman

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Executives from Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips said on Tuesday they would like more direct talks with Venezuela to help resolve disputes over seized oil projects.

Both U.S. firms launched arbitration against Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA after the OPEC nation took over their multibillion dollar heavy oil projects last year as part of a resource nationalization drive by President Hugo Chavez.

Exxon Mobil, which has won temporary court ruling freezing up to $12 billion (6.12 billion pounds) of PDVSA assets in its battle to recover its losses, said it was still interested in sitting down with PDVSA to help sort out repayment.

"We do remain interested in getting into substantive conversations with the Venezuelan government and with PDVSA around the fair market value of the assets that have been expropriated," said Mark Albers, Exxon Mobil senior vice president, at the CERA week energy conference.

Chavez, who frequently clashes with Washington over foreign policy, warned he could cut supplies to the United States -- the top consumer of Venezuelan oil -- over the asset freeze.

But Deputy Oil Minister Bernard Mommer on Tuesday said while a Venezuelan supply embargo was feasible, it would also hurt the economy of the oil-reliant nation.

ConocoPhillips Chief Executive James Mulva said direct talks with PDVSA were advancing and that he hoped they could wrap up the dispute by the end of this year.

"We continue our discussions with PDVSA and the Venezuelan authorities," Mulva said. "I believe that we are making progress. It will take time. I would like to see and hope that we can come to some sort of solution to this in 2008."