HONDURAN PRESIDENT CALLS U.S. OIL COMPANIES

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 TEGUCIGALPA 000076 SIPDIS SIPDIS NOFORN STATE FOR EB/ESC, WHA/EPSC, WHA/PPC, EB/CBA, AND WHA/CEN STATE FOR D, E, P, AND WHA TREASURY FOR AFAIBISHENKO STATE PASS AID FOR LAC/CAM NSC FOR DAN FISK COMMERCE FOR MSELIGMAN STATE PASS USTR FOR AMALITO E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/11/2036 TAGS: EPET ENRG PREL BBSR NI VE HO SUBJECT: HONDURAN PRESIDENT CALLS U.S. OIL COMPANIES "ENERGY TERRORISTS" BUT STILL SEEKS NEGOTIATED RESOLUTION REF: TEGU 2372 AND PREVIOUS Classified By: CDA James Williard for reasons 1.4 (b,d) ¶1. (S/NF) Summary: Honduran President Jose Manuel "Mel" Zelaya Rosales returned "a changed man" from meetings with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on January 10. Zelaya was clearly frustrated at his continuing inability to resolve Honduras' energy problems, and lashed out when (incorrectly) informed upon landing that gasoline shortages were imminent. Zelaya called U.S. oil companies "energy terrorists" for refusing to support what they view as an illegal nationalization of fuel imports by either participating in the bidding or allowing the GOH to use their storage facilities. Zelaya implied in his January 11 public remarks that a January 13 Council of Ministers emergency meeting would take up the question of expropriating these assets, but by January 12 had softened his views and told Vice President Elvin Santos that nationalization would not be raised at that meeting. Presidential envoy Arturo Corrales has worked to calm the President, noting that the President's information that importers were boycotting Honduras to cause a fuel shortage was incorrect and was "disinformation" on the part of certain groups with anti-oil company agendas. Corrales will continue his shuttle diplomacy between the GOH and the oil companies, seeking an exit strategy. In the mean time, he is confident the Council will ask only for an analysis of the situation. Vice President Santos conveyed three possible exit strategies to Post, but two involve the likely non-starter proposal to let the GOH use U.S. firms' storage facilities. Post is troubled that Zelaya acted in such a provocative and demagogic manner, especially based on incorrect information. We noted to Corrales and to Santos that even if such threats are not carried out, they inflict real damage on potential investors' perceptions of Honduras. Post is also concerned that in his frustration Zelaya could reach out to Chavez and PDVSA. End Summary. ¶2. (S/NF) Vice President Elvin Santos told Charge on January 12 that President Zelaya had returned from the inauguration of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega "a changed man." Zelaya was deeply frustrated that after a year of effort he has still failed to fix Honduras' energy problems, while Ortega could simply take advantage of pledges from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to fix similar problems in Nicaragua. According to Santos, Zelaya in sidebar with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Tom Shannon requested that POTUS intervene SIPDIS to convince U.S. firms to cooperate with the Honduran nationalization plan. Lacking such cooperation, he said, he "would have no choice" but to turn to Chavez. ¶3. (S/NF) Santos confirmed what Post had heard previously, that Zelaya prior to his trip to Nicaragua had been on the verge of declaring the entire fuel solicitation void. According to Santos, Zelaya would have blamed Minister of the Presidency Yani Rosenthal for the failure. Zelaya did not do so because declaring the bid a failure would have also implicated Presidential Legal Advisor Enrique Flores Lanza, a lifelong Zelaya friend. (Comment: Santos also said that it was Flores Lanza who had first mis-informed the President of the impending fuel shortage, setting off the President's outburst. Flores Lanza has been a strong supporter of the fuel nationalization plan all along, and continues to do whatever he can to see it come to fruition. Post does not discount the possibility that Flores Lanza deliberately sought to inflame the President with his incorrect reports of boycotts by the oil companies. End Comment.) ¶4. (U) In a January 11 press conference, President Jose Manuel "Mel" Zelaya Rosales accused the international oil companies (IOCs) in Honduras of being "energy terrorists" for refusing to allow the GOH to use their oil storage facilities. He said that an emergency Council of Ministers meeting would be convened on January 13 to takes "sovereign TEGUCIGALP 00000076 002 OF 004 decisions" to resolve the matter once and for all. Asked if this meant nationalization of the facilities owned by companies including U.S. firms Exxon and Texaco, Zelaya replied "Picture it happening (Imagineselas)." ¶5. (S/NF) In a meeting with Charge the evening of January 11, Minister of Foreign Relations Milton Jimenez sounded desperate, pleading for the Ambassador,s help in getting the U.S. companies to "collaborate". He argued that Texaco and Exxon must help Honduras out of its political problem. He said that the country is destabilized by the companies' refusal to participate in the bid, by their refusal to rent their fuel storage facilities, and by their delaying deliveries. Jimenez continued to maintain that the government wants to liberalize the market, but that the companies won't participate in this process either. He requested that Ambassador Ford somehow help Honduras by getting the U.S. companies to cooperate. ¶6. (C/NF) The GOH believes that it owes Mel's election to his promise of lowering prices at the gas pump and that he can not fail to do this. Post has pointed out in the past that the government sets the price here ) not the companies ) and that the GOH could lower prices today by changing their pricing formula, which benefits private gas station owners and transporters. It is clear, however, that Zelaya will not substantially alter the formula because he is afraid of street demonstrations led by Juliette Handal's Patriotic Coalition. Charge replied that the companies are in fact willing to discuss liberalization of the markets. But, from their point of view, they already have the right of access to the market and they have contractual agreements with their suppliers that they must meet. For those reasons, they chose not to participate in the bid, which they think is illegal. He added that we do not have any information as to whether they intend to sue or not, but this is something the companies themselves need to determine. ¶7. (C/NF) According to Presidential confidant and designated negotiator with the oil companies, Arturo Corrales, Zelaya's anger was sparked by reports that Shell and Texaco had organized a boycott of deliveries of gasoline to Honduras. These reports were false and were immediately rebutted by Shell and Texaco, which pointed out that at the moment the President was making this accusation, a gasoline tanker bearing a mixed Shell and Texaco shipment was being unloaded in Puerto Cortes. Corrales believes the disinformation was spread by Juliette Handal, President of the Patriotic Coalition, the group that pushed for the nationalization of all fuel imports into Honduras. When a careful analysis of the savings is conducted, Corrales says, the import scheme Handal favors saves only 0.3 lempiras, or less than USD 0.02 per gallon -- far less than advertised and too little to justify a move to a monopoly system administered by the state. Unable to show big savings, Handal is seeking other ways to attack the current importers, Corrales said. ¶8. (C/NF) Corrales told EconChief he has now been formally appointed the President's representative to the companies on this issue (a role he has unofficially encumbered since November). In that role, Corrales will be meeting individually and as a group with the affected companies, seeking a resolution that meets the political needs of lowering prices while respecting investor rights and existing contracts. Representatives of the U.S. firms confirmed to EconChief that these meetings are ongoing. It is unclear what the elements of such a deal would look like, but it would include changes to the margins applied in the fuel pricing formula. Post assesses that the deal would also have to reaffirm the current importers' right to continue importing fuel. ¶9. (C/NF) Asked if this means the GOH will declare the fuel solicitation process void, Corrales proposed a politically brilliant alternative: that the GOH declare the solicitation TEGUCIGALP 00000076 003 OF 004 process was entirely successful, because it banished forever the illusion that there are major cost savings to be had in fuel imports (that is, the false accusation that importers are gouging Honduras). Instead, the proposal would be to affirm that only very thin savings can be obtained at the point of import, but other, more significant savings could come from reforming the pricing formula. EconChief reiterated, and Corrales agreed, that this reform to the state-run pricing formula must be done in the context of a medium-term strategy to liberalize the fuels market, not instead of it. ¶10. (C/NF) Corrales told EconChief that he believes he has succeeded in convincing the President that he was misinformed. He has proposed and feels "90 percent" confident that the Council of Ministers will request nothing more than a thorough review of the proposals and their projected savings, perhaps by January 17. That should give Corrales and the companies more time to continue talks, and for the issue (and perhaps the President) to cool down. ¶11. (S/NF) Late on January 12, Vice President Santos called Charge to relay Zelaya's remarks to him that nationalization would not be raised at the Council of Ministers meeting on January 13. This follows the Charge's emphatic remarks to Santos that such an action would severely damage Honduras' image, both in the eyes of investors and of U.S. policymakers. In Charge's presence, Santos had contacted Minister Rosenthal and delivered the same message, concluding with a clear declaration that he opposed any move to nationalization. Rosenthal apparently carried this message to Zelaya, who upon reflection appears to have decided to de-escalate the situation, at least temporarily. ¶12. (C/NF) In his call to Charge, Santos also conveyed Zelaya's new bottom line: Zelaya would be willing to end the year-long stalemate over oil imports under one of three scenarios. First, if the current importers can beat ConocoPhillips offer, Zelaya would vacate the bid process and use the new offer as a benchmark price for continued imports by current importers. Second, the importers could "loan" their storage facilities to the GOH for a year to allow them to move forward with nationalization of imports and a move to monopolization of the sector. Third, the firms could lease the tanks to the GOH for the same period and for the same reason. ¶13. (C/NF) Comment: Post views the second and third options as likely non-starters with the companies, each of which has repeatedly refused to loan or lease their storage several times already during this process. While presented as a compromise exit strategy, these two offers are at base nothing more than a request that the GOH get its way and the firms capitulate. That seems unlikely. The final alternative -- beating the ConocoPhillips price -- might be negotiable, but probably poses legal problems for the firms. The firms cannot legally collude on pricing. Further, such a process might be condemned as non-transparent, and might open the firms to charges of price gouging in the past. Post notes this GOH proposal with interest, but feels constrained in its ability to present it to the U.S. firms, since that could be viewed by ConocoPhillips as assisting one group of U.S. firms (Esso and Texaco) to out-bid another U.S. firm (ConocoPhillips). Such a proposal is likely already at the heart of ongoing talks hosted by Corrales with the companies. ¶14. (S/NF) Comment continued: This episode highlights several disturbing aspects of Honduras' self-inflicted fuel crisis. First, the President is receiving deliberately incorrect information from politically motivated groups, and is acting on it without first conducting minimal due diligence to see if it is correct. Second, Post is very concerned that Zelaya's instinctive reaction was to threaten the companies with expropriation. Even had the rumors of supply shortages been true, this reaction was demagogic and TEGUCIGALP 00000076 004 OF 004 exaggerated. The mere threat, whether carried out or not, will further damage Honduras' reputation in the eyes of future potential investors. Finally, Post notes that this outburst occurred just as Zelaya returned from the inauguration of newly-elected leftist President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, on the margins of which ceremony Zelaya also reportedly met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and reassured him that Honduras remained open to PDVSA. Post assesses that Zelaya's threat to turn to Venezuela if he doesn't get his way is a real one, and could open the door to significantly stronger Venezuelan influence in both Nicaragua and Honduras. Williard WILLIARD