VENEZUELA - Bernard Mommer.

The Vice-Minister for Petroleum and a director on PDVSA's board, Mommer is one of the architects of the nationalisations. In 1999 he played a key role in the measures which led to the dismantling of the 1990s "aperture" (E&P opening to IOCs).

Mommer holds a masters degree in mathematics and a doctorate in social science, both from the University of Tubingen, Germany. He has been a university teacher and researcher for many years at different Venezuelan universities. From 1991 to 1995 he was senior adviser to PDVSA and was in charge of strategic planning co-ordination. From 1995 to 2001 he was a senior research fellow of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies and of St. Antony's College, Oxford. He also acted as an adviser to the Venezuelan Minister of Energy and Mines from 1999 to 2000, and as a consultant to the secretary-general of OPEC in Vienna in 2002. He also served PdV UK in London, and was adviser to the president of PDVSA.

Outstanding among his publications are Die Olfrage (The Petroleum Question - 1983 - Institut fur Internationale Angelegenheiten der Universitat Hamburg, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft Baden-Baden); El petroleo en el pensamiento economico venezolano - Un ensayo (Oil in the Economic Thought of Venezuela - An Essay) - with co-author Asdrubal Baptista; Prologue by Arturo Uslar Pietri (Ediciones IESA, Caracas, 1987); and The New Governance of Venezuelan Oil (1998: Oxford Institute for Energy Studies); and Global Oil and the Nation State which was published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, in 2002. In 2004, the Ministry of Energy and Mines publish his book "El mito de la Orimulsion". In 2005, he was appointed director on PDVSA's board and vice-minister of Hydrocarbons.