Venezuela
Updates
November 4, 2018: one more week and Venezuela may be completely out of fuel.
June 14, 2018: Veneuzela is now importing heavy oil to meet the demands of its largest refinery.
March 2, 2018: articles and headlines coming out of Venezuela suggest we may see a tipping point of some kind within the next 30 days.
February 27, 2018: the vultures are circling.
February 22, 2018: Venezuela's troubles continue.
January 23, 2018: Canadian oil will replace Venezuelan oil -- based on RBN Energy story at this post.From ArgusMedia, some data points:
- Venezuela's state-owned US refining subsidiary CITGO has shelved plans to re-start / operate Aruba's 235,000 b/d refinery
- why? CITGO running short of cash to finance the $695 million plan to revamp the refinery; shortfall due to US sanctions
- CITGO had already built a construction worker's camp and is looking for a way to move forward
September 13, 2017: Venezuela is asking Russia to restructure its debt. Venezuela faces $3.5 billion in bond payments in October and November, 2017, with less than $1 billion of liquid reserves. Venezuela's debt to Russia stood at $2.84 billion as of September, 2016. Russia's Rosneft lent more than $1 billion to PDVSA in April this year (2017) in prepayments for future oil supplies, bringing loans to the oil company to around $6 billion in the past few years.
July 23, 2017: Venezuela could be the first sovereign producer to fail. At Bloomberg. From my perspective, Venezuelan heavy oil = Canadian heavy oil. Any loss in Venezuelan exports will be a win for Canada. Too bad the Keystone XL was never built.
June 3, 2017: further isolating Venezuela, United Airlines suspends flights to Venezuela.
March 1, 2017: Venezuela is down to its last $10 billion.
May 13, 2016: president declares 60-day state of emergency.
May 9, 2016: hunger is no game, WSJ op-ed.
April 28, 2016: Venezuela does not have enough money to pay for the ink and paper required to print more money.
April 13, 2016: Schlumberger will reduce activity in Venezuela.
February 26, 2016: 238,000 bbls of heavy Venezuela crude oil at risk.
February 25, 2016: Venezuela shipping gold to pay its debts.
February 2, 2016: Venezuela begins importiing light oil. Production of light crude oil falls short; Venezuela needs light oil to blend with heavy oil for shipping, processing.
November 13, 2015: the story of two countries, Bolivia vs Venezuela -- BloombergBusiness.
Back in the late 1970s, when Venezuela’s oil wealth fueled the supersonic Concorde’s flights from Paris to Caracas, the idea that a poverty-stricken, landlocked nation known for bowler hats and coca leaves would someday surpass it was unthinkable. How times have changed.
Bolivia, South America’s poorest country on a per-capita GDP basis, leads or is poised to surpass Venezuela in a number of areas. Already plagued with a plunging currency and the world’s fastest inflation rate, Venezuela’s decline is stunning for a country that holds the world’s largest reserves of oil and whose late president, Hugo Chavez, once served as a mentor for Bolivia’s leader, Evo Morales.
While Morales took over Bolivia’s natural gas industry in 2006, his policies were never as radical as Chavez, who once walked through Caracas’s downtown, pointing at various companies and saying "nationalize it." Morales and Finance Minster Luis Arce “understood the importance of having orderly fiscal policy,” said Ben Ramsey, chief economist and head of sovereign debt strategy for the Andean region at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York, who follows the two countries. “They have massive reserves vis-à-vis their economy.”
After peaking at more than $40 billion in 2008, Venezuela’s reserves have tumbled to less than $15 billion, much of that in gold. While falling energy prices have also affected Bolivia, its reserves have been on an upward or stable trajectory under Morales, peaking at about $15 billion last year from less than $5 billion when Morales took office in 2006.
Original Post
But cash is running low. Gold reserves are falling sharply as Venezuela liquidates them to raise funds to meet debt payments. Also, the Wall Street Journal reported that Venezuela withdrew $467 million in cash reserves that it keeps with the International Monetary Fund, a sign that Venezuela is scrambling to raise as much money as it can.
And inflation is running at around 85 percent, at least according to official estimates, which are likely vastly understating the true inflation rate. Crime rates are some of the worst in the hemisphere..... oil prices need to rise to $88 per barrel in order to guarantee global oil investments. “If the price of oil stays at $40, there will be a depreciation of investment, and within a few months we are going to see a price of $150, $200. Who does this suit? Nobody,” the Venezuelan president said on state TV.
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The Apple Page
I find this interesting. This is a good example of government regulations holding back innovation. The link is at Macrumors:
Cook also said Apple doesn't have plans to introduce sensors or other health features that would cause the FDA to get involved with the device. He didn't rule out the possibility of other products that require FDA approval, like apps.I would trust the sensors Apple would use and they would eventually be "rubber-stamped" by the FDA, but not for at least a decade.
We don't want to put the watch through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) process. I wouldn't mind putting something adjacent to the watch through it, but not the watch, because it would hold us back from innovating too much, the cycles are too long. But you can begin to envision other things that might be adjacent to it -- maybe an app, maybe something else."
Cook knows what he is doing.
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Notes to the Granddaughters
I get a lot of free stuff by writing reviews for Amazon.com.
My wife says I am being dishonest: I rate almost everything 5 stars and am not "honest" in the reviews. (In fact, I am honest. The fact is, I only order stuff that is worth "5 stars." Why would I order something that would be less than 5 stars? It's not like I have time to waste.)
Today, I reviewed an advance copy of a book that will be released in a few weeks, Sex in the Sea, a very serious scientific marine biology book. I received it for free, but I specifically ordered it because I thought it might be something our oldest granddaughter would be interested in. She wants to become a marine biologist.
I gave the most honest review I have ever written, and I used words and phrases directly from the book.
I have written hundreds, maybe thousands of reviews for Amazon, and have never had a review rejected.
I posted the review and then sent a copy to my wife who is out in California. I received a phone call almost immediately despite the time difference. She was probably still in bed this morning when she called. She told me that I couldn't possibly post that review and I had to take it down immediately. I reiterated what she had told me about my reviews, and that this time I was going to write one of my best "honest" reviews. She was not in a mood to be trifled would.
I told her the review had been rejected by Amazon because it violated Amazon's policies.
She was relieved.
I re-submitted the review, replacing the "offensive" words with hyphens. Again, not one word was a swear word or an inappropriate word except when used as used in the book. This time, the review was accepted. The recommendation was the same: 3 stars. The only thing that was changed, the words Amazon did not want used were replaced with hyphens. [I have subsequently edited the review again, eliminating the hyphens so that there is nothing "objectionable" in the review. It is still rated 3 stars, although now that I have spent more time with the book, maybe 4 stars is warranted.]
It was interesting to learn that Amazon.com rejected an honest review because I mentioned that some sea creatures engage in group sex.
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