Venezuela’s choice to price its oil in yuan is an interesting, if not
toothless maneuver, that goes against earlier reports that it would favor the Euro. Still, the oil prices appear to be based on a U.S. dollar to Yuan conversion. It is unlikely that China would ever join Washington on its quest to force Mauro to end his campaign to rewrite Venezuela’s constitution in what many see as a step in bringing the downtrodden country closer to dictatorship, so the choice of yuan seems a safe one, if nothing else. After all, Venezuela has borrowed nearly $60 billion from China in exchange for selling oil at a discount—the details of which are a bit murky.
But safe, Venezuela is not, as its state-run oil company, PDVSA, slips ever closer to default, and with little hope that things will turn around. And
that $60 billion that Venezuela owes to China is supposed to be paid back in oil—oil that Venezuela isn’t producing. Venezuela’s production, according to OPEC’s secondary sources, have been on a steady decline in recent years, averaging 2,375 bpd in 2015, and falling to 2,159 bpd in 2016. Venezuela’s 2017 production fell even further, starting out in Q1 averaging 2,057 bpd and finally reaching an average of 1,918 bpd in August.
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