Category: Venezuela

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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 […]

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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. 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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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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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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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 […]

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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 — […]

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