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Venezuela Says China to Give $5 Billion Oil Loan

CARACAS—Venezuela’s government, facing a cash crunch amid a slump in oil prices, signed a deal to receive a $5 billion loan from China, President Nicolás Maduro said Tuesday. The funds will go to increase oil production in Venezuela in the coming months, Mr. Maduro said without offering more details during an address from China that was broadcast on Venezuelan state television. Support from Beijing—which also renewed a separate $5 billion loan to Venezuela earlier this year—may offer some relief to bond markets, where Venezuela’s debt securities are rated among the world’s riskiest. Wall Street analysts say the country could default on its debt as soon as next year. Mr. Maduro visited Vietnam and China this week in pursuit of financial aid for South America’s largest oil exporter as it reels from triple-digit inflation and worsening food shortages. The economic troubles are weighing on the ruling Socialist Party’s popularity ahead […]

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Russia, Venezuela to Discuss Potential Steps to Stabilize Oil Prices

MOSCOW—Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss “possible mutual steps” to stabilize the global price for oil at a meeting with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in China on Thursday, a Kremlin aide said, as both countries grapple with lower prices for their main export. Venezuela, a Russian ally that has been hit hard by plunging oil prices, has been pushing for an emergency meeting with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in coordination with Russia to work out a strategy to halt the recent retreat in prices, people familiar with the matter said. The Kremlin aide, Yuri Ushakov, didn’t expand on what potential steps could be taken but said they could be “within the context of Russia’s cooperation with OPEC.” Russia also has been hurt by lower crude prices, as oil and gas account for half of federal budget revenue. But officials have repeatedly said that Russia, which vies […]

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Venezuela Asks OPEC for Emergency Meeting on Oil Prices

Hard-hit Venezuela has been contacting other OPEC members to push for an emergency meeting in coordination with Russia to come up with a strategy to stop the current oil price rout, people familiar with the matter said. According to these people, Venezuela has been in touch with some members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, including Qatar’s oil minister and president of the OPEC conference, Mohammed al-Sada, to try again to find common ground to defend crude prices. “Venezuela is genuinely concerned that if no action is taken prices are going to drop further,” an OPEC delegate said. “They also understand that OPEC alone cannot help much and there is a need for cooperation with producers outside OPEC, mainly Russia,” the delegate said. A representative of Venezuela couldn’t be immediately reached for comment. Russia has previously sought closer ties to OPEC, but has signaled that it won’t […]

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How Brazil’s China-Driven Commodities Boom Went Bust

SÃO PAULO—Not long ago, Brazil stood as the leading example of how a developing nation could rise toward global prominence on the force of a China-driven commodity boom. As its economy surged, Brazil stormed the world stage—hosting a World Cup, demanding more say at the United Nations and blocking a U.S. free-trade plan for the Americas. Now Brazil is looking like a symbol of something else: resource-rich nations’ habit of ending their booms with spectacular busts. Brazil’s stock market is down 22% in the past year. Its currency has lost a third of its value against the dollar. And on Friday, Brazil is expected to report that in the second quarter, its economy shrank at a pace of about 1.7%. Economists are voicing fears of prolonged stagnation. China has caused turmoil in many places, but none more so than in this prime supplier of commodities to a country whose […]

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Venezuela’s Food Shortages Trigger Long Lines, Hunger and Looting

LA SIBUCARA, Venezuela—Hours after they looted and set fire to a National Guard command post in this sun-baked corner of Venezuela earlier this month, a mob infuriated by worsening food shortages rammed trucks into the smoldering edifice, reducing it mostly to rubble. The incident was just one of numerous violent clashes that have flared in pockets around the country in recent weeks as Venezuelans wait for hours in long supermarket lines for basics like milk and rice. Shortages have made hunger a palpable concern for many Wayuu Indians who live here at the northern tip of Venezuela’s 1,300-mile border with Colombia. The soldiers had been deployed to stem rampant food smuggling and price speculation, which President Nicolás Maduro blames for triple-digit inflation and scarcity. But after they seize contraband goods, the troops themselves often become targets of increasingly desperate people. “What’s certain is that we are going very hungry […]

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Oil at $77? It Is in This Country That Plays by Its Own Rules

South America’s second-largest and most enigmatic economy, Argentina is marching to its own beat. (Bloomberg) — Oil at $77? It is in Argentina. Oil has plummeted below $39 a barrel in the U.S. But despite the price bloodbath in global energy markets, it fetches nearly twice that amount in Argentina — home to some of the most expensive crude in the world. Even as prices plunged anew Monday, sending world benchmarks close to the lowest levels they briefly hit in the Great Recession, oil is still flying high in Argentina for the simple reason the government wants it that way. There is some method behind the apparent madness. Argentina is home to the second-largest reserves of shale gas and fourth- largest of shale oil in the world. Faced with a $6-billion energy trade deficit in 2014, the government has been using its made-in-Argentina price to try to turbocharge domestic […]

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Venezuelans contend with food, medicine shortages, as low oil prices cripple economy

Empty refrigerator shelves are pictured at a Makro supermarket in Caracas, Venezuela, August 4, 2015. Venezuelan supermarkets are increasingly being targeted by looters, as swollen lines and prolonged food shortages spark frustration in the OPEC nation struggling with an economic crisis. Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters Amid Venezuela’s ongoing economic crisis, protests this month in the nation’s capital over shortages of medicine and basic supermarket necessities have spotlighted the ripple effect of the falling price of oil, the country’s main export. Food shortages have prompted some violence and more than 50 incidents of grocery store looting so far in 2015. Families of children with cancer demonstrated in front of a children’s hospital in Caracas this month to protest the country’s shortage of chemotherapy treatments. Tens of thousands of Venezuelans with HIV have no access to antiretroviral drugs and condoms are scarce in the country. Venezuela has some of the […]

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9 Opposition Candidates Barred From Venezuela’s December Ballot

Photo Enzo Scarano, a former mayor of San Diego, Venezuela, won a primary for national legislative elections, but the government suspended his right to hold office. Credit Meridith Kohut for The New York Times SAN DIEGO, Venezuela — When he handily won a primary to run for the National Assembly, Enzo Scarano hoped to be part of a wave carrying the opposition to a legislative majority that would alter the political balance in Venezuela . But when a government agency stripped him of his right to hold public office, scuttling his candidacy, he found himself caught up in a different kind of wave — of government measures that appear aimed at weakening the opposition ahead of a make-or-break legislative election in December. “It was a message to the Venezuelan people: ‘Look, we can do whatever we want,’ ” Mr. Scarano said of the move to bar him and at […]

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Colombian Peso Leads Global Currency Declines as Crude Tumbles

Colombia’s peso led global declines as oil, the nation’s biggest export, tumbled on concern that a slowdown in China’s economic growth will reduce demand for the commodity. The peso plunged 1.5 percent to a record low 3,107.65 per dollar at the close in Bogota, extending its weekly loss to 3.7 percent. The daily drop was the biggest among 152 currencies tracked by Bloomberg. Crude oil tumbled to below $40 a barrel in New York for the first time since 2009. “This really is panic mode,” Andres Munoz, the head currency trader at Corp. Financiera Colombiana, said from Bogota. “Investors are getting out of emerging markets” including Colombia’s local peso bonds. One-month implied volatility on options for the peso, reflecting projected shifts in the exchange rate, increased Friday to the highest level since June 17. The currency’s swings may lead the central bank to announce currency measures to ease swings […]

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China’s Building a Huge Canal in Nicaragua, But We Couldn’t Find It

A man points out the towns that will be affected where the canal, red line, will be built across Nicaragua. Deep on the southeastern side of Lake Nicaragua, along a bumpy dirt road that climbs gently through lush-green forest, sits the tiny town of El Tule. It is quintessential rural Central America: Chickens roam outside tin-roofed homes while pigs stand tied to trees, awaiting slaughter; the sound of drunk locals singing along to ranchera music greeted visitors on a recent rain-soaked afternoon. The village, if you listen to Nicaraguan officials, is a key point in what will be the biggest infrastructure project the region has ever seen, the construction of a $50 billion canal slated to run 170 miles from the country’s east to west coast. Awarded two years ago by President Daniel Ortega to an obscure Chinese businessman named Wang Jing, the concession calls for El Tule to […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple