Venezuela oil chiefs told US data falsified -report

[naaman fletcher]

Senior officials from PDVSA and the energy ministry had quicker access to U.S. visas after telling the embassy how the company double-counted oil production and manipulated the price of Venezuela's crude, El Pais reported, citing the cables.

"A senior member of the energy ministry ... admitted that at times PDVSA exported oil to be stored overseas and then imported it again to refine and export it again, counting twice the same production," the El Pais story said.

...

Staff at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas were told to watch for potentially useful Venezuelan officials standing in line at the visa counter and let them skip the line, El Pais said.

The tactic appears to have been successful -- officials also revealed that PDVSA sold oil to China for as little as $5 a barrel, suffered from growing problems of quality control and used refined products to raise the price of Venezuela crude, it said.


http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFN0928023420101210?sp=true

[social_critic]

1. Pretty weird

Hard to believe they would go to such an extent to fake the amount of oil they sold.

[social_critic]

2. Dug a little more regarding status of oil industry

Talked to Venezuelan friends, walked a little bit to see what's going on. It does look like the industry is somewhat slow right now, their management keeps being pulled out to handle various crises. Right now the crisis du jour is the disaster caused by rains. Seems a lot of roads are cut off, lots of people are homeless, and the government response is a little disjointed. Based on similar events in the past in other nations, I would expect GDP growth to be fairly negative in the 4th quarter - if they can't move their products, then industry and commerce just drops off. It's going to be a grim Xmas for Venezuelans, I think.