CARA­CAS, Venezuela- Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Hugo Chavez says his gov­ern­ment would be open to ne­go­ti­at­ing with Exxon Mo­bil Corp in a dis­pute over the na­tion­al­sa­tion of an oil project in the coun­try. Venezue­lan of­fi­cials have pre­vi­ous­ly said Exxon Mo­bil's com­pen­sa­tion de­mands are ex­ces­sive. The Irv­ing, Texas-based oil com­pa­ny turned to in­ter­na­tion­al ar­bi­tra­tion af­ter re­fus­ing to ac­cept the terms of the na­tion­al­i­sa­tion in 2007.

Chavez says he would be will­ing to "sit down with them and seek a friend­ly set­tle­ment, but that's up to them and not to us." Exxon Mo­bil did not re­spond to an email seek­ing com­ment. Chavez said dur­ing a news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day that his gov­ern­ment has al­ways sought agree­ments in such cas­es when pos­si­ble.

AP