In this week’s roundup…ICSID rules on ExxonMobil’s arbitration claim against Venezuela; Inflation tops 27% in 2011 in Venezuela, while experts warn that President Chávez’s election-year spending spree may make that number even higher in 2012; Chávez continues his “Gold Rush;” Venezuela’s inability to develop its natural gas industry will result in more imports; and The Economist urges Chávez to come clean about his health.

Panel Deals a Setback to Exxon in Venezuela, The Wall Street Journal

An international arbitration panel awarded Exxon Mobil Corp. about $908 million in a verdict over oil assets nationalized by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in 2007, the company said late Saturday.

The payout was substantially lower than the $7 billion that Exxon was seeking in restitution and is likely to be a boon for Venezuela’s leftist government, which in recent years has embarked on a nationalization campaign to centralize control over key economic sectors. State oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA said Monday it will pay Exxon a total of $255 million—after subtracting existing debt—over the next 60 days.

Heavy spending by Chavez in election year could boost 27 percent inflation in Venezuela, AP

President Hugo Chavez’s government is likely to spend heavily this year to rev up the economy during his re-election bid, and that could worsen one of Venezuela’s biggest problems: 27-percent annual inflation that is already close to the highest in the world. Chavez has started ramping up spending ahead of the October vote, and economists warn that more money injected into the economy will jolt prices. The government predicts 22 percent inflation in 2012, but the investment bank Barclays Capital projects that it could top 36 percent.

Venezuela to Leave 15 Tons of its Gold Reserves in Foreign Banks, Bloomberg

Venezuela will leave 15 tons of gold reserves in banks outside the country, Central Bank president Nelson Merentes said today. Venezuela held about 211 tons of its gold in Europe, Canada and Switzerland before it started repatriating the reserves last year, Merentes said on national radio. “It wasn’t necessary to have that much gold abroad for financial transactions,” Merentes said. “We’re going to keep bringing it back. Soon we will have the majority of our reserves in the Central Bank vault.”

Development problems force Venezuela to extend natural gas imports, Platts

Venezuela’s inability to develop its natural gas industry as planned has forced it to revise and extend a deal with Colombia’s state-controlled Ecopetrol and Chevron involving gas imports from the partners’ Guajira gas field in northeastern Colombia, a Caracas-based consultant said Wednesday.Since a 225-km binational gas pipeline was inaugurated in late 2007, Ecopetrol and Chevron have exported up to 250 million cubic feet of gas daily to mainly industrial clients in and around Maracaibo in western Venezuela’s Zulia state. Shipments in recent months have averaged 200 million cubic feet per day.

Cancer and the body politic, The Economist

Even by the standards of one of the world’s great conspiracy theorists, it was wacky stuff. On hearing the news that Argentina’s Cristina Fernández had become the fifth left-of-centre Latin American leader to be diagnosed with cancer in the past three years, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, himself unlucky enough to be one of them, mused that the United States might have developed technology to “induce cancer” in its political foes. “I don’t want to make any reckless accusation,” Mr. Chávez said disingenuously, “but it’s very, very, very strange.”