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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Shunning US dollar, Venezuela lists oil prices in Chinese yuan |
| 2017-09-17 |
| Venezuela on Friday began listing the price of its oil in the Chinese yuan, following President Nicolas Maduro's announcement last week that he would rid the economy of the "US imperialist system." The move was seen as a bid to weather US-imposed sanctions on the embattled country. The country's petroleum ministry listed the week's closing price per barrel at 306.26 yuan on its website, equivalent to US$46.7, up from 300.91 yuan the week before. But economist Cesar Aristimuno said the yuan figure had little meaning beyond reference value, "because at the end of the day, the market continues to be quoted in dollars." Washington's tough new sanctions on Caracas bar US banks from trading in new bonds issued by the government or the state run oil company PDVSA. The goal is to restrict Venezuela's access to vital bond and equity markets. The aim is to "deny the Maduro dictatorship a critical source of financing to maintain its illegitimate rule," the White House said. So Maduro is right about the Deep State and bankers waging an economic war on Venezuela. Maduro railed that they amounted to a financial and economic blockade, as ratings agency Fitch downgraded Venezuela and warned default was now likelier. |
| Posted by:Herb McCoy7309 |
| #2 Part of the equation is that socialist countries tend to fail. The old adage is that they do well until they run out of other people's money is true. For a socialist country to get cozy with a communist country (China is the second largest consumer of oil--about 12 bbl/day, half that of the U.S.) would indicate a certain amount of desperation. OPEC raped the U.S. for many years. Moreover, bad lefty policies in the U.S. allowed this to happen. During the past several years, fracking, oil shale extraction and the opening of oil fields in N. Dakota have eased the predatory pricing squeeze by OPEC. More recently, Trump has gone ahead with the Keystone pipeline. An article that is a couple of years old although not too dated provides some interesting facts about these OPEC countries. Oil prices and budgets: The OPEC countries most at risk. Why are OPEC countries at risk when oil prices go down? Because these countries tend to be a single-product economy. Good luck Venezuela with your new marriage (sarc). |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2017-09-17 11:24 |
| #1 Makes you wonder if and how CITGO will keep it's head above water here in the US. (They're nominally the retail end of PDVSA, supposedly firewalled off when the difficulties began with Chavez.) |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2017-09-17 09:09 |