WikiLeaks: China Profits Off Cheap Venezuelan Oil

[naaman fletcher]

PDVSA, the cable said, “had analyzed its crude sales to China and determined that China had only paid $5/barrel of crude on a couple of deals.” (Crude oil futures now trade around $88 per barrel and at the time of the cable were priced at $78.)

Data discrepancies have been noticed before. In April, when Chávez announced China would offer Venezuela up to $20 billion in loans to be repaid in oil supplies, a tally by The Wall Street Journal showed that while Venezuela put crude exports to China at 460,000 barrels a day, Chinese figures showed the country importing only an average of only 132,000 barrels of Venezuela crude per day during the first couple months of 2010.

Another U.S. Embassy cable published by El Pais also highlighted mismatches in the data, citing a PDVSA official’s January 2010 estimate of fuel oil exported by Venezuela to China that was nearly five times higher than Chinese figures on such imports.

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/12/15/wikileaks-china-profits-off-cheap-venezuelan-oil/

Millions and millions of dollars lost due to incompetence. How many people could that money have housed? I'm sure the people are grateful that some chinese traders made a killing off of their oil wealth.