Venezuelans voted for a new legislature on Sunday in an election that may punish the ruling Socialists for a brutal economic crisis and give the opposition a long-sought platform to Continue Reading
Government opponents surged to a rare victory here on Sunday in key congressional elections framed by the country’s deep economic crisis, claiming a legislative majority for the first time in Continue Reading
In December 1999, a year after he was elected Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez explained the source of his popularity in a televised interview. “I belong to that immense majority that Continue Reading
Mayor Primitivo Cedeño is in his office by sunrise these days, organizing deliveries of subsidized chicken, rice and even refrigerators to prospective voters in this town of 20,000 ahead of Continue Reading
Vantage Drilling Co. VTGDF -57.58 % , an offshore oil rig operator linked to the massive corruption scandal at Brazil’s state-run oil firm, filed for bankruptcy protection late Wednesday night Continue Reading
Ecuadorean oil minister Carlos Pareja Tuesday said he wanted OPEC to reduce its crude output ceiling by under 2% to provide support for global oil prices. In Vienna ahead of Continue Reading
All across the Americas, drilling rigs are being idled as oil prices hover near six-year lows. In Colombia, more than 57 percent have been pulled; in Mexico, 42 percent. Then Continue Reading
Brazil’s gross domestic product fell by a record 4.5 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter, confirming fears that Latin America’s largest country is on track for its worst recession Continue Reading
Facing an imposing statue of Venezuela’s 19th-century independence hero Simón Bolívar, Lilian Tintori, wife of imprisoned opposition leader Leopoldo López, prepares to deliver a message to voters: the government is Continue Reading
Mr. Ferreira had been on temporary leave from Petrobras since Sept. 14, Though he had only been at the company since an April shake-up, few had expected Mr. Ferreira to Continue Reading
Venezuela’s PDVSA said on Friday that Canadian miner Crystallex had no justification for a complaint in a U.S. court seeking to recover $2.8 billion from the state oil company. Crystallex Continue Reading
In his last interview before his arrest on Wednesday morning, Brazilian billionaire banker André Esteves gave no hint of any impending trouble. “We are in a tough moment,” the relaxed Continue Reading
Doubts over a planned $50bn waterway across Nicaragua that aims to compete with the Panama Canal are set to intensify after the Chinese-led project was postponed by up to a Continue Reading
A broad investigation into corruption at Petrobras , Brazil ’s state-owned oil company, widened on Wednesday with the arrests of a sitting senator and a billionaire investment banker who is Continue Reading
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says his country is keen on ensuring oil market stability by cooperating with Venezuela. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI TEHRAN, Nov. 23 (UPI) — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told visiting officials from Venezuela it was incumbent upon producers to improve the situation in the global energy market. "The Islamic Republic of Iran and Venezuela are friends and will do their utmost in favor of their nations’ economic development and welfare," the Iranian president told visiting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro . Iran is eyeing a return to the global energy stage as sanctions pressures ease in the wake of a July nuclear agreement reached between Tehran, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany. By the end of the year, Iran is expected to start up dozens of oil and gas projects , worth an estimated $185 billion. Production from Iran is already […]
Oil fell amid a broader commodity rout while Venezuela predicted prices may tumble to the mid-$20s a barrel unless OPEC tackles the global surplus. West Texas Intermediate futures for January fell as much as 3.3 percent, sliding with industrial metals such as copper, which dropped to the lowest since 2009. Venezuela is urging the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to adopt an “equilibrium price” that covers the cost of new investment in production capacity, Oil Minister Eulogio Del Pino said Sunday. Oil has slumped about 46 percent over the past year amid speculation a global glut will persist as OPEC continues to pump above its collective quota. The 12-member group meets Dec. 4 in Vienna to discuss the production ceiling as Iran signals its intention to boost output by 1 million barrels a day within five to six months of economic sanctions being removed. “The structure of the oil […]
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Though investments are needed, output from shale basins in Argentina is expected to accelerate, Wood Mackenzie finds. Photo by David Gaylor/Shutterstock HOUSTON, Nov. 20 (UPI) — One of the more lucrative shale basins in the Americas, the Vaca Muerta play in Argentina, could double its output by 2018, analysis finds. Vaca Muerta, located in Neuquen province, is considered one of the best shale basins in Latin America. Analysis emailed from Wood Mackenzie found parts of the basin are producing on average 646 barrels of oil equivalent per day, up 53 percent from last year. Petronas, Mexican oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, known also as Pemex, and Argentine oil company YPF signed a trilateral memorandum of understanding on exploration and production in 2013. Russian energy companies have expressed interest in joining the venture . The study from Wood Mackenzie finds production increases will be slow, but year-on-year expansion expected at around […]
The company has yet to reach its lofty production targets. Instead, Petrobras attained a more dubious title: the world’s most-leveraged oil company, with $127.5 billion in debt as of Sept. 30. Now, the bill is coming due. Loans of nearly $24 billion mature in 2016 and 2017. Investors and analysts are fretting about what’s next: repayment, restructuring or default. “I’ve had calls from investors in every time zone around the world,” said Sarah Leshner Carvalho, an analyst at Barclays. “There is almost no geography not involved in Petrobras bonds.” The company’s strategy of loading up on dollar-denominated debt has backfired as both the local currency and the price of oil have plunged over the past year. Last week, Petrobras reported that its total debt at the end of the third quarter was up 44% from the end of 2014 in local-currency terms to 506.58 billion Brazilian reais. That is […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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" […]
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 […]
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 […]
Venezuela’s weekly oil basket price fell further back below $40 as oil prices around the world slipped and as the crucial U.S. market remained well supplied. According to figures released by the Venezuela Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, the average price of Venezuelan crude sold by Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) during the week ending October 30 was $38.64, down 83 cents from the previous week’s $39.47, when it had tumbled $2.02. WTI in New York averaged $44.76 — down $1.24 — for the week, while Brent crude traded in London averaged $48.04 — down 70 cents from the previous week. According to Venezuelan government figures, the average price in 2015 for Venezuela’s mix of heavy and medium crude is now $46.93 for the year. Venezuela’s average oil price for 2014 was $88.42, down from 2013’s $98.08, 2012’s $103.42 and 2011’s $101.06, but higher than 2010’s $72.43, and much […]
China ends one-child policy Venezuela is running out of money fast and has started selling its gold. The cash-strapped country could default by next year when lots of debt payments are due. Venezuela’s reserves, which are mostly made up of gold, have fallen sharply this year as the country needs cash to pay off debt and tries to maintain its social welfare programs. Venezuela owes about $15.8 billion in debt payments between now and the end of 2016. But it doesn’t have enough to make good on its payments. Venezuela only has $15.2 billion in foreign reserves — the lowest amount since 2003. A lot of those reserves are in gold. Less than $1 billion of Venezuela’s reserves are in cash, and it has a couple billion in reserves at the IMF. Its government won’t say how much gold it currently has. In May, Venezuela had $11.7 billion — […]
Oil majors had big plans for Brazil, but you can’t tell by looking at the country’s offshore drilling these days. After crude was first struck in the pre-salt formation in the seas off Rio de Janeiro, producers including BP Plc and Total SA were ready to flock to Brazil with billions of dollars in investments. For the country, it appeared to augur an unprecedented era of oil bounty. Nine years later, the promise remains unrealized: Spain’s Repsol SA and China Petrochemical Corp. are the only foreigners operating an offshore drilling rig. So what happened? While the crude-price collapse and an ongoing graft probe are part of the story, Brazilian officials who failed to auction enough exploration licenses and slowed approvals with miles of red tape were also major contributors to the boom that never came to be, according to Joao Carlos de Luca, a member of the IBP lobby […]
Algeria supports Venezuela’s call for a summit among heads of state from OPEC and other oil-exporting nations in a bid to lift crude prices, Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra said. ”Algeria has always been a pioneer when it comes to strengthening solidarity between producing countries,” Lamamra said Monday in an interview in Paris after meeting President Francois Hollande. “We would only convene a summit if its success is guaranteed; meetings at the level of ministers and experts will therefore precede such an event.” Venezuela has proposed that heads of state from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and other oil producers meet in November to discuss the price needed to sustain investments in future supplies, the country’s Oil Minister Eulogio del Pino said on Oct. 21. Speaking in Vienna during a meeting of experts from OPEC and from outside the group, del Pino said Venezuela seeks to set an […]
WASHINGTON—The directors of one of Spain’s leading construction companies were delighted to land an appointment with Rafael Ramírez, the president of Petróleos de Venezuela, to talk about their plans to bid on a $1.5 billion electric-power project for the Venezuelan state oil giant. But when they showed up at the JW Marriott Hotel in Caracas, it was Mr. Ramírez’s cousin, Diego Salazar, who received them in the presidential suite, say two people who attended the 2006 meeting. Mr. Salazar got right to the point, they say: The Spaniards would have to pay at least $150 million in kickbacks to be in the running. “If not,” Mr. Salazar told the businessmen, according to one person, “you should return to the airport.” The executives didn’t bite. But plenty of other vendors were willing to play along on PdVSA projects, say people who worked with the company before Mr. Ramírez’s departure last […]
Cuba plans to drill exploratory deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico by the end of 2016 or beginning of 2017 despite current low oil prices, officials from the state oil monopoly say. CAMARIOCA, Cuba, Oct 21 (Reuters) – Cuba plans to drill exploratory deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico by the end of 2016 or beginning of 2017 despite current low oil prices, officials from the state oil monopoly said. Cuba-Petroleo (Cupet) will drill exploratory wells as deep as 7,000 meters (223,000 ft) in waters of up to 3,000 meters in production sharing contracts with Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA and Angola’s Sonangol. "We will initiate a drilling campaign at the end of 2016 or the start of 2017," Osvaldo Lopez, Cupet’s head of exploration, told Reuters on Wednesday. "The essential goal of the new drilling campaign is at least two deep wells. There could be three. […]
Venezuela has set a target price of $40/barrel for its export basket of crude and products for 2016, Minister of Economy, Finance and Public Bank Rodolfo Marco Torres said Tuesday at a presentation of the national budget for next year. The 2016 target price compares to the $60/b target the Venezuelan government put in place for the country’s 2015 budget. "Excess oil supply has resulted in the sustained fall in oil prices," Torres said. "Considering the trends in the international oil market, the 2016 budget has been estimated [at] an average export price of the Venezuelan oil basket [of] $40/b," Torres said. Venezuela has seen its income from oil exports fall by 50% due to the sharp decline in global oil prices. Article continues below… Oilgram News brings you fast-breaking global petroleum and gas news on and including: Industry players, upstream and downstream markets, refineries, midstream transportation and financial […]
Venezuela not only has the funds needed to make payments to bond investors due this month and next, but intends to keep making timely payments on its obligations, Finance Minister Rodolfo Marco Torres said Tuesday. “The government will continue faithfully honoring national and international debt commitments, demonstrating the solidity and reliability of the Venezuelan state,” he said during his presentation of the 2016 budget and debt bills to the National Assembly broadcast on state television. Venezuela has the roughly $3.5 billion ready to make the principal and interest payments due on its Petrobono 2015 this month and the PDVSA 2017 bond next month, Marco Torres, who is also economy vice president, said. Venezuela’s debt composition at year-end 2014 stood at 68 percent domestic and 32 percent international, he said, and by year-end 2015, the country will have made $13 billion in debt payments. Marco Torres was said to have […]
Venezuela’s international reserves fell to a 12-year low of $15.3 billion as the South American country faces payments on its dollar debt totaling $4.5 billion in October and November. Reserves fell $614 million on Oct. 16, the central bank said Monday on its website. That’s the lowest level since May 2003 and the biggest daily decline since June 3, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The country, which has seen dollar revenue decline with oil prices, and its state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, have principal and interest payments of $1.5 billion due this month and another $3 billion in November, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The government will likely be able to pay its debt due this year, although there’s a 60 percent chance of default next year, Eurasia Group said Monday. “While Eurasia Group continues to expect Venezuela to service its debt in 2015, a […]
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro speaks on national television in Caracas, Oct. 6. (JUAN BARRETO/AFP Photo/Getty Images) A political turnover could be in store for Venezuela, and the country’s leaders are doing their best to prepare for it. The Dec. 6 parliamentary elections are less than two months away, and the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) stands a good chance of losing its legislative majority. Faced with the possible erosion of their political power, the party’s key figures are taking steps to secure their own futures. Click here to continue reading… Stratfor provides global awareness and guidance to individuals, governments and businesses around the world. We use a unique, intel-based approach to analyze world affairs. Copyright © 2015 Stratfor Global Intelligence, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 221 West 6th Street Suite 400 – Austin, TX 78701, USA unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences | forward […]
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Summary Mexico’s first attempt to open up its oil industry to foreign companies was a failure. Its auction only attracted $2.6 billion in potential investments, compared to $17 billion maximum potential. Brazil had a similar failure more recently, with only 10% of its blocks being auctioned receiving viable bids. These latest failed auctions, coupled with other facts point to a permanent peak in oil production at current prices, which is unfolding presently, which will only reverse once prices rise. By far the most spectacular and talked about trend since the oil price collapsed more than a year ago, is the dramatic decline in drilling that occurred in the United States since the beginning of this year. For many months, we have been hearing about the resiliency of the shale industry, fueled by the delay in reaction of the industry in response to declining prices. At first, there was a […]
AP Photo/Gregorio Marrero CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A Venezuelan opposition leader who had been living in self-imposed exile was arrested Thursday after returning to the socialist South American country. Former Gov. Manuel Rosales flew into Venezuela on Thursday after six years as a fugitive. Intelligence police met him at the airport and took him into custody. He was expected to appear in a Caracas court later in the day. Before his arrest, Rosales vowed to continue fighting the country’s 16-year-old socialist administration and urged Venezuelans to vote in Dec. 6 legislative elections. Authorities had warned him days earlier that he would be detained if he came back. Rosales was governor of the western state of Zulia, where he returned Thursday. He ran for president in 2006 and lost to Hugo Chavez. He went into exile in 2009, fleeing to Peru and then Panama after prosecutors accused him of stealing […]
Cuba has oil and gas. That is certain, say geologists. The big question is just how much. Chris Schenk, Geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, was one of the first to assess the island’s natural resources. By Schenk’s estimate Cuba has at least 4.6 billion barrels of undiscovered oil and 9.8 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered natural gas. Both are considered significant enough to pique the interest of any major energy company in the world. “People are always interested in where the oil is,” Schenk told FOXBusiness.com. The challenge is finding and tapping those resources, which are said to be primarily in the North Cuba Basin on the northwestern part of the island. Source: USGS U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro sat down at the United Nations in late September as part of the ongoing efforts to thaw relations that began earlier this year. Even before […]
An oil pump is seen in Lagunillas, Ciudad Ojeda, in the state of Zulia, Venezuela, March 18, 2015. The safe money for oil traders is betting that Venezuela’s plan to resurrect OPEC’s old price band mechanism, attempting to set a $70 floor for the battered market, will be doomed from the start. Saudi Arabia, the group’s de facto leader, has shown zero interest in returning to a strategy of supporting prices; big producers outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, namely Russia, have essentially ruled out cuts. And most analysts say attempting to set a price range is futile, or that the $70 price is unsustainably high, or both. Yet a handful of experts and observers say the proposal – articulated by former oil minister Rafael Ramirez in an interview with Reuters – may be a catalyst for moving away from OPEC’s laissez faire approach to collapsing oil prices, […]
Rafael Ramirez waves during his meeting with Colombia’s Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin in Caracas November 19, 2014. Venezuela this month will unveil a bold new strategy for rescuing ailing oil prices, one lifted from the OPEC’s history books – a price band that would build an automatic floor for prices at $70 a barrel. In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Venezuela’s long-time oil minister and current United Nations ambassador Rafael Ramirez said the proposal – to be presented to a meeting of OPEC technical advisors on Oct. 21 – would reapply the old mechanism of progressive production cuts to control prices, with a "first floor" of $70 per barrel and a later target of $100 per barrel. "We will try to progressively recover the price," he said. The proposal offers the first detailed public insight into Venezuela’s months-long global effort to drum up support for measures to revive […]
Brazil just held an oil and gas auction, and judging by the results, few companies are interested in developing the country’s oil and gas reserves right now. The state-owned oil company Petrobras, which is still reeling from the corruption scandal, did not participate in the auction. The unusual absence was due to the company’s massive pile of debt. Petrobras has limited resources to throw around these days, and it can ill-afford to take on new projects that would require large capital expenditures upfront, with payoff somewhere down the road. However, there was scant interest from international oil companies as well. Brazil’s oil auction failed to attract any oil majors, including Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Statoil, ExxonMobil, or BP, all of which either have a presence in Brazil or were registered to bid in auction. Out of the 266 onshore and offshore blocks that were put up for bid, only […]
Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, sat out an oil licensing round in Brazil for the first time on Wednesday as it struggles to reduce the oil industry’s biggest debt load. Brazil’s National Petroluem Agency sold only 37 of the 266 onshore and offshore blocks it offered in the worst turnout at a Brazil auction in years. International majors who operate in Brazil, including Statoil ASA, Royal Dutch Shell Plc., and Total SA, didn’t submit any bids. Winning bidders include QGEP Participacoes SA and Parnaiba Gas Natural, both based in Rio de Janeiro. The auction took place amid a slump in crude prices, a national political crisis and with Petrobras, the country’s dominant producer, suffering cash constraints. While small and mid-sized producers prefer to join Petrobras as minority partners to limit risk, the company is balking at new financial commitments, according to Jotavio Gomes, an oil consultant and […]
A worker fills a car with gasoline at a Brazilian Oil Company Petrobras gas station in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, September 30, 2015. As Brazil prepares for its first sale of oil exploration rights in nearly two years on Wednesday, the auction is shaping up to be a mini-referendum on the willingness of investors to bet on the future of an industry under pressure and a Brazilian economy in turmoil. Not only has the price of oil fallen more than 50 percent since the last auction, slashing sector revenue and potential profit, Brazil’s principal oil company, state-run Petroleo Brasileiro SA, is mired in a giant price-fixing, bribery and political kickback scandal. And with $130 billion in debt and a backlog of existing projects, Petrobras, as the company is known, has not said if it will bid. In all previous auctions Petrobras, alone or as a member of a group, […]
SÃO PAULO—Brazil’s state run oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA, PBR 5.52 % or Petrobras, cut its investments and expenses outlook through 2016 following a drop in oil prices and sharp depreciation of the Brazilian real. The company said it now expects to invest $25 billion in its operations this year, down from its previous view of $28 billion, and $19 billion in 2016 instead of its previous view of $27 billion. Petrobras said it expects manageable operating expenses of $29 billion this year, down from $30 billion, and $21 billion in 2016, compared with its previous view of $27 billion. The company it expects the cuts “to preserve its fundamental goals of deleveraging the company and creating value for shareholders.” In June, when Petrobras announced its business and management plan for the 2015-2019 period, it was based on a crude oil Brent price average of $60 per barrel this […]
Ecuador’s economy slipped into recession in the second quarter for the first time since 2009 as the government struggles to borrow enough money to offset the global oil slump. Gross domestic product shrank 0.3 percent from the previous three months, after contracting a revised 0.1 percent in the first quarter, central bank General Manager Diego Martinez said Wednesday to reporters in Quito. From the year earlier, the economy expanded 1 percent. Ecuador is running out of money. Its use of the U.S. dollar as its official currency means increased dependence on foreign loans as the slump in oil prices cuts the value of exports. The local money supply has shrunk by about a quarter this year, while the trade deficit has swelled to a record. To make matters worse, expected loans from China, the nation’s biggest foreign creditor, haven’t come through as fast as forecast, forcing the government further […]
