Venezuela Faltering

Updates

Updates: now at this link. 

March 30, 2017: court gives "absolute" power to Maduro; this is pretty much one-man rule. The "new" Fidel Castro.

May 13, 2016: president declares 60-day state of emergency.

May 9, 2016: more of the same. No end in sight. 

April 28, 2016: Venezuela does not have enough money to pay for the ink and paper required to print more money.

February 15, 2016: Venezuela's lights go out.

February 3, 2016: Venezuela's crude oil production falls short; must import oil. 

December 11, 2015: EIA update on Venezuela; may hold 513 billion bbls of oil. 

December 2, 2015: bartering surges in Venezuela as things go from bad to worse. 

February 17, 2014: it looks like Venezuela is about ready to implode. Bloomberg is reporting: government forces and opposition forces preparing to take to the street to rumble. This reminds me of scenes in Dr Zhivago, the Bolshevik revolution. The DrudgeReport headline, the big headline for the day: "Venezuela on the brink." I posted the original post (Venezuela faltering) on January 31, 2014, over two weeks ago. Glad to see Drudge is finally picking up on the story. LOL. Venezuela isn't selling much oil any more, but all things being equal, this should support oil prices.

February 4, 2014: Bloomberg is reporting:

Venezuela’s plummeting oil sales to the U.S., its biggest export market, are exacerbating a collapse in the nation’s debt securities.

Bonds issued by Venezuela sank 3 percent on Jan. 31, a day after data released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed that 2013 energy sales to the country are headed for a 28-year low. The sell-off pushed losses this year to 12.4 percent, more than three times the average 3.93 percent drop among notes from the least-creditworthy developing nations, according to data by Bloomberg.

The tumble in oil exports, Venezuela’s biggest source of dollars, comes as President Nicolas Maduro faces a shortage of U.S. currency that’s caused consumer prices to soar 56 percent and foreign reserves to plunge to a decade-low of $21 billion.

Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the state-run oil producer known as PDVSA, is sending hundreds of thousands of barrels a day to China to repay loans totaling more than $40 billion since 2008, at a time when its production is shrinking.

Original Post

Warming the cockles of my heart:

“Venezuela is losing out by selling crude to China, which is a market where they are netting back a lower amount of money,” John Auers, a senior vice president at industry consultant Turner Mason & Co., said by telephone from Dallas. “They have been doing it in spite of themselves, as they do not want to sell to the U.S.” 

By the way, wasn't Venezuela the country that gave free heating oil to Massachusetts residents?

It was never my impression that Venezuela, under Marxist leadership, was all that interested in making money in the first place. Whatever.

So, if they are making less money selling to China, why are they doing it? 

Here's the rest of the story being reported by Bloomberg:

Venezuelan energy sales to the U.S. are heading for the lowest levels in 28 years as President Nicolas Maduro steps up shipments to his main lender China and the shale boom floods North American refineries.

Venezuelan exports of crude and petroleum products to the U.S. averaged 792,000 barrels a day in the first 11 months of 2013, which would be the lowest annual rate since 1985, according to data published yesterday on the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s website.

State-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA is sending hundreds of thousands of barrels a day to China to pay back government loans. At the same time, refiners along the U.S. Gulf Coast are sourcing more domestic supply as a surge in drilling shale rock sends output to the highest in a quarter-century. 

I wonder if Jane Nielsen is reading this. For newbies, Jane was the individual who famously said the Bakken might have some oil, but it won't make a difference. LOL. Search for her on the blog. She shows up often.