The world's largest oil companies do not get pushed around. At least not often.

But two Texas giants are about to lose billions because they have been kicked out of massive oil projects in the Orinoco basin of Venezuela by that country’s president Hugo Chavez.

Their majority interests taken over by the state run oil company.

"In fact what is still up for negotiation is price. How much these companies are going to be compensated by Venezuela,” said energy expert Andy Lipow.

Houston Based Conoco Phillips says that it expects to lose $4.5 billion this quarter based on its capital interests in the region.

"Although the company is hopeful that the negotiations will be successful, it has preserved all legal rights including international arbitration,” the company said via a statement.

For its part Irving based Exxon Mobil says the company , "...is disappointed that we have been unable to reach an agreement on the terms. However, we continue discussions with the Venezuelan government on a way forward."

President Hugo Chavez may have succeeded in kicking the Texas giants out, but not everyone thinks that Chavez has as much control as he thinks.

"Actually the Venezuelans need the sophisticated refineries we have in the Gulf Coast to continue to process their crude,” said Lipow.

That's because all the oil produced by the projects Conoco Phillips and ExxonMobil built goes directly to those companies own refineries.

Refineries specially tuned to handle that crude.

"They'd be very hard pressed to find another outlet in Europe or even China to be able to handle this oil,” said Lipow.

So what Venezuela is left with is essentially orphan oil, left at sea with nowhere to go.