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Venezuela questions U.S. ties after oil-spying claims

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro calls for investigation into U.S. ties after hearing of claims intelligence officials spied in nation’s oil industry. File photo by Mohammad Kheirkhah/UPI CARACAS, Venezuela, Nov. 19 (UPI) — Venezuela’s president ordered a review of ties with Washington after uncovering allegations the United States was spying on employees at the state oil company. President Nicolas Maduro said his administration received documents suggesting the U.S. National Security Agency spied on workers with Petroleos de Venezuela , known also as PDVSA, by intercepting phone calls and emails from former Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez . Maduro was quoted by Univision as saying his administration "will initiate a comprehensive review of the relationship with the U.S. government because Venezuela is respected." The president referenced reports from The Intercept, teleSUR and the Wall Street Journal saying U.S. officials were looking into allegations of corruption at PDVSA. Many of the allegations were […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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In Guyana, a Land Dispute With Venezuela Escalates Over Oil

Photo A military parade in Georgetown, Guyana, this month. Guyana is in a dispute with Venezuela that dates to the 19th century over two-thirds of its land. Credit Meridith Kohut for The New York Times BARTICA, Guyana — At a little tin-roofed beer joint on the west bank of the Essequibo River, Rawle Huggins relaxed on a wooden bench and considered his tiny country’s escalating border spat with its much bigger neighbor, Venezuela . “Here is Guyana ,” said Mr. Huggins, a sometime gold miner, referring to the land beneath him and everything around it. “I don’t live in Venezuela . I live in Guyana . They live,” he added, gesturing beyond the jungle that fringes the town, “over there.” Bartica (pronounced BAR-ti-ca), a two-and-a-half-hour journey by car and boat from Guyana’s capital, Georgetown, is the jumping-off point for what the Guyanese call “the interior,” a sparsely populated region […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Drug Charges for Nephews of Venezuela’s First Lady Could Add to Public Distrust

Photo President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela with his wife, Cilia Flores, center, at the United Nations offices in Geneva on Thursday. Credit Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images In the eyes of many Venezuelans, Cilia Flores, the wife of President Nicolás Maduro, represents a special kind of family values. When she held the powerful post of head of the National Assembly under former president Hugo Chávez, she was accused of placing as many as 40 relatives in jobs in the legislature, a nepotism scandal that had even some red-blooded adherents of Mr. Chávez’s socialist-inspired revolution denouncing her. Now, with Ms. Flores wielding more influence than ever as first lady, she and her husband are finding that another set of relatives is causing them headaches. Two of Ms. Flores’ nephews were arrested this week in Haiti and flown to the United States to face federal narcotics charges. The two men […]

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U.S. Arrests Two Relatives of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Drug-Trafficking Charges

U.S. agents have arrested two relatives of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on charges they conspired to transport 800 kilograms of cocaine to the U.S., according to two people familiar with the matter. The arrests come amid U.S. accusations that the top echelon of the government in Caracas is involved in the narcotics trade . The two men, Efraín Antonio Campo Flores and Francisco Flores de Freitas, were first arrested in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Tuesday by local police, turned over to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents and flown the same day to New York in a DEA jet, these people said. The two were scheduled to go before a federal judge in New York on Thursday, they said. A spokesman for the federal district court declined to comment. Mr. Campo Flores, 29 years old, identified himself on the DEA plane as a stepson of the president, according to the people […]

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Venezuela PDVSA negotiates light oil import deals for 2016

Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA will secure contracts to import crude by early next year, a senior executive said, phasing out spot-market purchases as part of a bold strategy to reduce costs and boost quality of its final blends. PDVSA [PDVSA.UL] is negotiating with some 15 companies and one option under discussion is paying suppliers with the final blend, Jesus Luongo, vice president of refining, trade & supply told Reuters in an interview. These supply contracts would also allow for flexible routing, with crude potentially sent to Venezuela’s oil fields, domestic refineries, or foreign ones depending on need. "We’ve already received proposals which we’re analyzing, and we’re waiting to be ready with our projects to make it happen," Luongo said in his Caracas office, adding work is underway to allow pipes and loading areas to route light oil to the vast extra-heavy crude Orinoco Belt. While coy on the […]

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Venezuela Seen as Major Beneficiary of Obama’s Keystone XL Snub

PlayCurrent Time 0:00/Duration Time 0:00Remaining Time -0:00Stream TypeLIVELoaded: 0%Progress: 0%00:00Fullscreen00:00MutePlayback Rate1Subtitles subtitles off Captions captions settings captions off Chapters Chapters No compatible source was found for this video.Foreground—WhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyan—OpaqueSemi-OpaqueBackground—WhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyan—OpaqueSemi-TransparentTransparentWindow—WhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyan—OpaqueSemi-TransparentTransparentFont Size50%75%100%125%150%175%200%300%400%Text Edge StyleNoneRaisedDepressedUniformDropshadowFont FamilyDefaultMonospace SerifProportional SerifMonospace Sans-SerifProportional Sans-SerifCasualScriptSmall CapsDefaultsDonexShare & EmbedCopy CodeAdvertisement Is Obama’s Keystone XL Decision a Blow to U.S. Economy? President Barack Obama’s rejection of TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline could give Venezuela’s ailing economy a lifeline. With the world’s largest oil reserves, the South American country produces heavy crude that’s similar in consistency to the one coming from Canada’s oil sands, and its economy relies largely on shipping it to the same U.S. Gulf Coast refineries that Keystone XL was meant to supply. “The number one beneficiary of all this will be Venezuela and other suppliers of heavy oil that ship to the Gulf Coast by tanker,” IHS Energy Inc. Vice President Jim Burkhard said by e-mail. […]

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Board Turmoil Hits Brazil’s Petrobras

RIO DE JANEIRO—Growing friction between the chief executive of Brazilian state oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA PBR -1.34 % and its board is threatening to hamper the company’s efforts to shore up its finances, people familiar with the matter said. An oil-workers strike launched Sunday has shut down up to 13% of Petrobras’s daily crude production , crimping the company’s already weak cash flow. In addition, continued upheaval in the boardroom is raising fresh concerns about a leadership vacuum as the company struggles to pare a mountain of debt. On Tuesday, Clovis Torres, a board member standing in for Chairman Murilo Ferreira—who took an unexplained leave of absence in September—abruptly resigned for “personal reasons,” the company said. Another director, union leader Deyvid Bacelar, who was elected to represent Petrobras employees on the company’s board, was arrested during a small protest as part of the strike on Monday and briefly […]

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Worst Petrobras strike in 20 years hurts Brazil oil output

The Petrobras logo is reflected in the window of the company’s headquarters in Sao Paulo April 23, 2015. A four-day strike at Petrobras gathered steam on Wednesday, cutting crude and natural gas output from the No. 2 South American oil producer and threatening to become the most disruptive walkout at the state-run oil company in 20 years. On Wednesday, Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as Petrobras is formally known, said in a securities filing late Wednesday that oil output in Brazil was about 140,000 barrels a day, or 6.5 percent below pre-strike levels of about 2.1 million barrels a day. Using contingency plans management restored production that was cut by as much as 273,000 barrels a day, or 13 percent below pre-strike levels on Monday, and by 178,000 barrels a day on Tuesday, or 8.5 percent below levels before the strike began Sunday, Petrobras said. The strike is having a "significant" […]

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Worst Petrobras Strike In 20 Years Endangers Debt Plan

A 4-day strike against Petrobras gathers steam, cutting crude and natural gas output from the oil producer and threatening to become the most disruptive walkout in 20 years. RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 4 (Reuters) – A four-day strike against Petrobras gathered steam on Wednesday, cutting crude and natural gas output from the No. 2 South American oil producer and threatening to become the most disruptive walkout at the state-run oil company in 20 years. Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as Petrobras is formally known, is expected to continue to report significant output cuts after new offshore units were affected by the strike, which began on Sunday. On Monday Petrobras said it had lost 273,000 barrels a day of crude output, or about 13 percent of its Brazilian output. It has made no formal estimate for output since then. The cuts have already caused the biggest strike-induced hit to Petrobras’ crude output […]

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Petrobras Output Cut by Oil Workers Striking Against Austerity

Brazil’s daily oil production has fallen by about 500,000 barrels as oil workers strike for the third day to protest austerity measures by state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA that are resulting in job losses, the country’s main oil union said Tuesday. Output from the Campos Basin is down about 400,000 barrels a day with 25 offshore platforms completely shut and another 8 units pumping at reduced levels, Francisco Jose de Oliveira, head of communications for the FUP oil union, said in a telephone interview from Rio de Janeiro. Production has declined at other regions, including Espirito Santo and Bahia, Oliveira said, adding that the union doesn’t have any immediate plans to meet with Petrobras management. Petrobras and the National Hydrocarbons Agency, the oil regulator known as ANP, declined to comment on the impact the strike has had when contacted by e-mail. The ANP said there is no risk of fuel […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple