CARACAS: Koch Industries said it had received no word that Venezuela nationalised Fertinitro, a large fertilizer maker in which the US-based group has a substantial stake.

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez announced that the takeover of Fertinitro, one of the world’s main producers of nitrogen fertilizer, days after vowing to radicalize his socialist “revolution” following legislative elections last month.

Koch has a 35 per cent stake in Fertinitro and Venezuelan state-run petrochemicals company Pequiven has 35 per cent. Saipem, a unit of Italy’s Eni, holds 20 per cent and local brewer and food company Polar has the rest.

“Koch Fertilizer has not received any official or informal notice, nor have we received any notification from Fertinitro regarding any disruption,” a Koch spokeswoman told Reuters by email. “We are attempting to obtain details and information.”

Chavez has put much of the OPEC member’s economy into government hands during his 12 years in power. He has said he will accelerate the pace of reforms after the opposition won 40 per cent of National Assembly seats and almost half the popular vote in Sept.26 parliamentary elections.

Also on Sunday, Chavez announced the nationalization of a local motor lubricants company and said the state would take control of nearly 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres) of land owned by British meat company Vestey Foods.

Last week, the government nationalised a major local agricultural supplies company, Agroislena.

Venezuela’s Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said the nationalization of Fertinitro guaranteed the government access to all the fertilizer it needed for farmers and a nationwide seeding plan that would ensure abundant, cheap food for all.

“The Koch company grabbed all our fertiliser and was selling it abroad at speculative prices,” Ramirez told workers on Monday at the Fertinitro plant in eastern Anzoategui state.

“The future is for the workers, for you who build socialism, for the men and women working in our national industries, to safeguard for our people, our communities, the benefits of worker control over such important companies.”

Critics say Chavez is moving fast to push through takeovers before new lawmakers take their seats in January. After that happens, his ruling Socialist Party will no longer have the two-thirds majority it needs to pass some major legislation or make appointments to key institutions.

On Monday, Chavez stressed the importance of the battle against large landowners he has denounced as capitalists.

“We must break the oligopolies, monopolies, concentration of land in a few hands,” he wrote via his Twitter account. “We must connect the city with the countryside! Land is the most important of the productive forces. The Agrarian Revolution”.