Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is seeking several billion dollars from Qatari lenders to help plug a budget gap after oil lost more than half its value. “We’re finalizing a financial alliance with important banks from Qatar that will give us sufficient oxygen to help cover the fall in oil prices and give us the resources we need for the national foreign currency budget,” he said on state television. Maduro, Hugo Chavez ’s hand-picked successor, is turning to Asia and the Middle East for relief as crude’s nosedive of more than 50 percent erodes international reserves and funding options. Boasting the world’s biggest oil reserves, the Latin American nation has seen its crude output slump since 2008 and imports of refined products surge as state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA revenue is diverted to social programs and fuel subsidies. The financing would be for “various” billions of dollars for 2015 and […]