Tod in Caracas und Erdölgeschäfte

Der venezolanischen Zeitung Notitarde zufolge war Cristophorus Wilhelm Klieuters, der Deutsche, der in Caracas kurz nach seiner Ankunft letzte Woche ermordet wurde, ein häufiger Besucher Venezuelas. Er war ein Geschäftsmann und hatte vor, mit mehreren Bonzen der staatlichen Erdölgesellschaft PDVSA zu sprechen. Klieuters hatte eine Firma, die mit Bohrinseln zu tun hatte, wie die Bild-Zeitung berichtet.

Kurioserweise heuerte er die Dienste einer privaten Sicherheitsfirma an, die einem aktiven General der berüchtigten venezolanischen Nationalgarde -Guardia Nacional- gehört. Wie kann um Gottes willen ein aktiver General so eine Firma treiben und das in einer sogenannten Revolution?

Hier könnt Ihr Dieterich auf Spanisch hören. Der Kerl, der sich als Ökonom bezeichnet, hat nichts verstanden. Er beschuldigt Maduro vieler Fehler, als ob Chávez damit nicht angefangen hätte. Er sagt, Maduro hätte nun inkompetente Minister, als ob die Minister des Caudillos Chávez andere Menschen gewesen wären.

Russians, oil and Venezuela

Gazprom has decided to give back the license for oil exploration in the Urumaco II area. They are backpedaling from oil projects in Cuba and Ecuadorean Guinea as well. Gazprom apparently spent about 300 million dollars in exploration work in Venezuela and the Devil's Excrement didn't pop up as expected. The Urumaco II block is part of the Rafael Urdaneta project (Rafal Urdaneta's the name of an old military, what else?) in the Gulf of Venezuela. You can read about that here (in Russian). This announcement, from documents about their decisions from 2013, shouldn't be a surprise. Gazprom had already said a long time ago they were abandoning that field.

The statements about Gazprom's losses, by the way, came last year from Igor Sechin, former Portuguese interpreter for the Soviet forces in Africa and KGB man, one of Putin's best friends and one of the men who was recently placed on a US list of sanctions for Russia's actions in Ukraine. Sechin is Rosneft's chef, not Gazprom's boss but he had explained those things in his capacity as vice-president of Russia. You can read some about the relationship between these companies in the Economist. Bloomberg offers a detailed portray of Rosneft's role in Russia today and quite some insight into Sechin's mind.

Oil prices have been rather stable for the last 3 years at a level 800% higher than in 1998. That is bad for a country that has become so dependent on oil that it needs ever higher oil prices to grow.

No El Dorado

GDP, Venezuela, Nigeria and Norway

Sycophants for the Venezuelan regime, people like Mark Weisbrot in the USA, often talked about the impressive GDP growth shown in the last decade or so. Of course, such impressive GDP rates are no longer present. But: did they ever mean something, at all?

GDP growth is, at most, a faint indicator of something. It can hardly be used to compared countries with different population rates and levels of actual development.

 Look at the following chart. It shows simple GDP growth according to the World Bank for three oil-exporting countries: Nigeria, Norway and Venezuela. As you can see, Nigeria supposedly "outperformed both Venezuela and Norway during most of the last 20 years. The Nigerian government didn't have the same amount of propaganda consultants as Chávez's regime. Few if anyone was talking about development there. 

There is another thing you can notice: both Venezuela and Nigeria show a very unstable growth. Periods of huge hikes switch to deep falls. Norway, on the other hand, remains smoothly just over the positive line.

Positive and negative years don't balance each other. What gets destroyed is gone. You cannot build on destroyed value. It is obviously much easier to show a rise if you firstly fall but that rise means almost nothing. You don't really have to be an economist to understand this.

The data reaches only up to 2012. Last year Venezuela grew by only 1.2% and that growth was based on a massive spending of loaned money. There was hardly any investment. It was money to buy food and appliances and a little bit of housing - but hardly enough - for yet a new couple of election rounds, elections that are supposed to show Venezuela has a democracy even if there isn't the slightest remain of rule of law. 

Venezuela's GDP is likely to stay very low in the coming years and the actual GDP per capita will keep going down as long as Chavismo is in power. Chavismo and its sycophants abroad will blame it on capitalism or some US embargo. Norway is likely to keep its humble but steady growth.

Venezuela's non-oil sector 15 years after the military came to power

Boligarchs have a lot of chutzpah. They have repeatedly talked about the need to diversify Venezuela's economy, which is hugely dependent on oil prices. They have done so from the very start and the reason is that they knew they had to do it. And their followers nodded and said "how right our leaders are". That's the way to go. That's how Arturo Úslar Pietri said we should go already back in 1937.

Of course, it has all been hot air, like everything this regime has promised.

This chart, produced with data from the Central Bank, shows the dollar value for export of goods from 1997 until 2012. In green you can see the goods related to oil (mostly crude oil). In yellow you see everything else. The share of "alternative" export sources went from 31% of all exports to 4%. That is quite dramatic. One could say this was unavoidable, as OPEC oil prices rose from 12 dollars a barrel in 1998 to something around $104 today. But then even the total amount of dollars from non-oil sources has dropped. We went from exporting 5541 million dollars in non-oil-related goods to exporting 3694 million dollars fifteen years later.

The Venezuelan government is made up of utterly incompetent people whose only skills are 1) their ability to create new dirty tricks to remain in power in a pseudo-democracy and 2) their ability to become rich while ranting about how terrible the capitalist, fascist oligarchs are.

Maduro is replacing ministers and other high ranking functionaries at a faster pace than the deceased military caudillo ever did. He tried one economist as president of the Central Bank from August until January but went back to a mathematician with no clue about economics. He appointed an economist to be the new Minister of Trade in mid January but replaced him two weeks later for a geographer who had been environment minister for some months before.

This is the mess Venezuela is in. This is not new with Maduro but its whole scope is starting to unravel rather fast.

Russia can share Venezuelan oil with China

The Russian newspaper Kommersant tells us how Lukoil is trying to sell its shares in the oil field of Junin. Lukoi is talking to the French Total, the Norwegian Statoil, the Korean KNOC, the Indian ONGC, the US American Chevron, the Russian Zarubezhneft and Bashneft and to the Chinese Sinopec and CNOOC.

Talking about Chávez having nationalised oil exploitation: officialdom told useful idiots abroad Chávez had nationalised the oil industry, which he definitely did NOT. What he did was to cancel the agreements the Venezuelan state had signed when oil prices were at the bottom. These agreements had been necessary so that Venezuela could have even some basic research going on. Chávez did that only after oil prices rose high enough for him to get financial respite. In the last few years oil prices kept increasing but even they are not enough to keep up with the research and maintenance costs of the oil industry, so the government has had to open up again and has done so getting into deals that are probably worse than anything the maligned Carlos Andrés Pérez did. In that context, the Chávez government has introduced a series of oil projects whereby foreign companies can get up to 40% of shares. In the case of Junin,  60% of that 40% went to Rosneft, led by notorious Igor Sechin, and 20% went to Lukoil and Gazprom Neft each. 

Lukoil has had problems negotiating with Gazprom and also with Rosneft, so it is trying to leave. According to the consortium laws, the companies have to decide by the end of this month - i.e. by tomorrow, what is going to happen with the shares. Sechin didn't want to give the money Lukoi expected for its 20%. Some say the Chinese are going to be the ones carrying out the deal and that Rosneft and Gazprom would agree to that.

Venezuelan companies investing in Venezuela? Not with the "revolution". 

Are the Chinese going to get yet more of our oil fields, from the Russian, that is?

A Canadian gringo explains where oil-rich Venezuela is getting petrol from

You have to go and see Steven's post. This is the kind of reporting you would normally read in a special article in The Economist, but instead you find it in a blog.

Venezuelans get less and less petrol from this place

Guess who Venezuela's "revolutionaries" are buying  it from

Chávez, Putin's puppet, and other stories

Chávez, Russia's puppet: a bad joke?

The president of the oil company Rofnet's, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia and former KGB agent Igor Sechin, gave Venezuela's military strongman Hugo Chávez a present from former KGB agent and current president of Russia, Vladimir Putin. The present is a puppet. What else did you expect?

Chávez must be very excited

Sechin said he came for a new project to building houses at the Fuerte Tiuna - it seems like that little area is the source for a thousand projects for foreigners to build houses in the country - and, last but not least, to invest in the Carabobo 2 oil fields. He also mentioned Russians could invest 20 billion dollars for 40 years cooperation in Junin 6. Right.

Rotten Food for Dollars

Meanwhile, an opposition deputy from central Carabobo, Neidy Rosal, reports there are 179 thousand tons of grain in 30 ships waiting to be disembarked in the haven of Puerto Cabello. A large part of that load will become rotten...and a lot of people involved in importing will get huge amounts of subsidized dollars for that cargo...which will allow them to have huge profits for stale food Venezuelans won't eat. This is still the Pudreval affair that goes on and on in Venezuela but it has become just recurrent news at a local newspaper. I am still not sure how much of the whole thing (the port's collapse, the rotten cargo) has to do with sheer incompetence from the port's functionaries and how much utter corruption from different groups.

Fatherland or electricity

Finally, the caudillo said in one of his latest speeches that what is at stake in Venezuela now is not whether we will keep having the power failures that plague the country in the last years or not...what is at stake is "the Fatherland". You bet.

Benzin, um darin zu baden

Viel billiger als Mineralwasser: Benzin

Die SDZ schreibt über Benzin in Venezuela. Der Artikel ist gut, allerdings etwas ungenau. Da wird zum Beispiel gesagt, dass schon lange kein Präsident sich mehr getraut hat, den Benzinpreis zu erhöhen. Das ist nicht ganz korrekt: Rafael Caldera hat die Benzinpreise im Jahr 1996 erhöht und nach Caldera haben wir nur einen Präsidenten gehabt: den ehemaligen Putschist Hugo Chávez. 

Chávez ist derjenige, der keine Cojones hat und zwar weil er weiss, dass einer der Treibfaktoren der Gewalttagen beim Caracazos die Benzinpreisserhöhung unter Carlos Andrés Pérez 1989 war. Damals haben die Linksextremisten die ohne Vorbereitungen angemeldeten Sparmassnahmen von Pérez ausgenutzt, um eine Konfrontation mit den angriffslustigen Militärs und Polizisten zu suchen und Plünderungen zu provozieren.

Meine Stadt hat über 1.2 Millionen Menschen. Sie hat nur eine richtige öffentliche Bibliothek und die ist so gross, wie die Bibliothek eines kleinen Dorfes in Andalusien. Das Geld, das zur Zeit für die Subvention von Benzin ausgegeben wird und vor allem den Besserverdiennden dient, könnte für tausend Bibliotheken eingesetzt werden. Die Venezolaner haben aber andere Prioritäten.

Oil tanks, thunder and explosions: Is it something in the air?

PDVSA now not only red-red but more often than not on fire

Two tanks at the huge El Palito refinary were burning last night. According to Ramírez, head of the state oil company PDVSA and Minister "of the Popular Power for Energy", a thunderstorm was the culprit:  lightning strokes hit two oil tanks and that was it.

A couple of years ago we heard about a huge fire after lightning stroke the Venezuelan refinery in Bonaire. There have been other minor incidents when we hear it was lightning again (when it is not an iguana or some other South American animal).

A friend in Bonaire told me back then people in that island were saying PDVSA Bonaire didn't have the proper equipment like lightning rods to prevent these accidents from happening. When the fire broke, it didn't even have the required foam and other equipment to extinguish the fire and the Dutch authorities had to help.

What is the truth about these lightning accidents in Venezuela's refineries? Do you know? Is this just bad luck or more of the bad maintenance issues that have plagued Venezuela's oil industry since 2003?

Venezuela and oil disasters

The huge explosion that cost the life of at least 39 people in and around Venezuela's largest oil refinery, Amuay, is not an isolate accident. Since Chávez sacked in 2003 over 2000 PDVSA employees maintenance and security levels dropped dramatically. It doesn't matter PDVSA now has over 135% more workers than before.

March 2011 saw already an explosion in Amuay....there weren't dead back then but there were fatal casualties in that refinery in that year.

Alejandro Tarre has a good overview of the issues with regards to accidents and lack of maintenance in PDVSA since Chávez is in power.

As he says, Primero Justicia (Henrique Capriles' party) has kept track of 77 deaths related to PDVSA accidents since 2003. PDVSA's very 2011 annual report conceded it carried out only 2 out of 9 required maintenance procedures for that year.

Venezuela's refineries are a complete mess. Venezuela has to import more and more petrol than ever in spite of all the crude it has.

Venezolaner und erneuerbare Energie | Venezuelans and renewable energy

Mit dem folgenden Diagramm könnt Ihr ein bisschen einschätzen, was Venezolaner über erneuebare Energie denken. Die Daten stammen aus einer Umfrage, die ich in meinem spanischen Blog organisiert habe. 148 Menschen antworteten.

Die einzige Frage lautete: wann wird man zumindest 50% des Kraftstoffes aus erneuerbaren Energiequellen erzeugen.

Wie Ihr seht, denkt über 25% der Befragten, dass wir spätestens in zehn Jahren dabei sind. Über 50% der Menschen sind der Meinung, dass dieser Zustand in 20 Jahren oder weniger erreicht wird. Ich frage mich aber, ob diese Menschen sich bewusst sind, was für Folgen das für Venezuela hätte - wenn es, natürlich, dazu käme.

Ich würde auch gern wissen, wie viele Chávez-Anhänger das eine oder das andere denken.

More oil spills in the Land of Grace

Two new oil spills are reported from the Anzoátegui region, where there were a series of pretty bad oil spills in the last few months. We always get to hear about a fraction of the oil spills happening in Venezuela now. Although the state company employs twice as many employees as in the times prior to Chávez, the management has gone down the drain...perhaps some Chavista loonies will say it is all part of a sabotage, but the reality is that the state company PDVSA is letting Venezuelans down. It is simply incompetent.

Here you can read (in Spanish) about those oil spills.

Ölpest in Venezuela: schon wieder, nun beim Guanipafluß

 Noch einmal ist eine Pipeline in Venezuela geplatzt, diesmal im Bundesstaat Anzoátegui...eigentlich hat das Problem schon vor zehn Tagen begonnen. Der Guanipafluß ist 320 Km lang und mündet in den Golf von Paria. Betroffen sind vor allem die Kariña-Indianer.

The Russians and Venezuelan oil

Let's talk about oil now. A couple of days earlier I mentioned to you about how Russia's viceminister, ex-KGB man Igor Sechin, went to Venezuela to discuss a 4-billion dollar loan for weapons. He also talked about oil. Specifically, he discussed about the Carabobo-2 oil field. Rosneft' would be involved. That company is involved, together with Gazprom Neft', Lukoil, TNK-VR and Surgutneftegaz in the Junin-6 field.

Rosnet' will own 40% of the Carabobo-2 field and PdVSA 60%. Russians will be paying a bonus of 600 million dollars on top of 400 million dollars more for "initial investments". The total investment needed would go into many billions. A source told Kommersant the involvement in Carabobo-2 is more political than economic based.

Some people close to Rosneft' think it is logical that ExxonMobil, which usually works with Rosneft', would be the logical partner. Others doubt this will happen, specially after Exxon's assets in Cerro Negro were nationalized in Venezuela in 2006.

Some Russians think the whole gamble is very risky. Others think the loans for weapons and the investments will pay off with the return from oil.

How can they be so sure?

Venezuelas Gold und Chavez' Hände

Der Spiegel berichtet auch über den Wunsch des venezolanischen Caudillos, das Gold des Landes so schnell wie möglich zurück nach Venezuela zu transportieren. Leider hat Spiegel sehr wenig Lust, über Venezuela zu recherchieren und beschränkt sich darauf, als Grund für die Aktion nur das zu zitieren, was der Präsident der Zentralbank, Nelson Merentes, sagt. Dem venezolanischen Beamten zufolge, will die Regierung Venezuela unabhängiger vom Erdöl machen - wirklich- und die Wirtschaft mit den Erlösen (des Goldverkaufs) breiter aufstellen.

Die Leute beim Spiegel haben anscheinend nicht darüber nachgedacht, dass Venezuela mittlerweile nicht 10%, 20%, nicht 50%, sondern über 600% mehr Geld bekommt hat als 1998 und zwar aufgrund der höheren Erdölpreise. Sind Teile dieser Zusatzeinnahmen nicht genug, um zu investieren? Nein, denn das Meiste wird einfach verschwendet wird und nur einige Milliarden werden in Sozialprogrammen, die wiederum leider keine Nachhaltigkeit aufweisen. Die Militärregierung (movimiento cívico militar, wie Chávez sie nennt) ist so korrupt, dass die erhöhten Erdöleinnahmen nicht mehr genug sind, um überhaupt die Wirtschaft wachsen zu lassen, geschweige denn zu diversifizieren.

Chávez hatte im Jahr 2009 bei Hard Talk über die niedrigen Erdölpreise des Landes als Grund für die Rezession erwähnt. In Wirklichkeit waren die "niedrigen" Preise nur ein lokales Minimum. Die Regierung bekam viel mehr Geld als in jedem der 13 Jahren vor Chávez Amtsantritt.

Miguel hat schon viel über den FONDEN, den Entwicklungsfonds Venezuelas gesprochen. Anscheinend haben wir wirklich mit einer Affaire zu tun, die an Mobutu erinnert. Wenn Du Englisch lesen kannst, musst Du Miguels Seiten besuchen.

Chávez braucht das Gold, um wieder gewählt zu werden. So einfach ist das. Die Petrodollars, findet er, könnten nicht genug sein. Gold kann man schnell verkaufen. Viel vom Erdöl ist schon an die Chinesen verpacht oder nur in einigen Jahren erreichbar. Chávez kann auch den Tipp von Gaddafi bekommen haben: mit Gold kannst Du den Kampf weiter führen, so oder so.

Hauptfeldwebel Mobutu, rolle model für Venezuela? Oder eher Gaddafi?

The Vikings discover more oil under the sea

You can read about that here (in German). Norwegian oil reserves could go up a sixth of its current volume.

Will this have some effect on oil prices in the mid term?

For how long can Venezuela be a parasite nation?

$ per barrel, projection with 10% price increase: 

This is unlikely to remain for so long

Venezuela has experienced the longest oil boom in its history. The Chávez regime has been able to cling to power thanks to that. And yet the military regime has become so inefficient, so corrupt, that it does not only need high oil prices, but permanently higher oil prices. How sustainable is that? 

Let's imagine oil prices increase now on average 10% per year. As I have written before, that would be enough to keep Venezuela from getting back into recession. It is very doubtful that the trend can keep itself for many years: a threshold will be reached that would move us towards a definite fuel shift. This fuel shift won't be complete in a year or two but once it gets started, it will set itself forth and Venezuela will start to get less dollars for each barrel.

Unfortunately, no one in Venezuela is talking about this. This is bad. Someone within the alternative forces has to have the courage to tell the population Venezuela is not really a badly managed rich country.

Die Sache mit dem Erdöl und wie man nachhaltige Entwicklung zerstört

Der Wissenschaftler Miguel Octavio analysiert schon wieder, was mit dem Erdölsektor in Venezuela passiert. Er hat sich die Mühe gegeben, die ganzen Berichte des staatlichen Erdölkonzerns PDVSA zu analysieren und siehe da, auf Seite 14: PDVSA hat im Jahr 2008 $ 555000000 in Forschung und Entwicklung investiert,  aber nur $276000000 im Jahr 2009 und $188000000 im Jahr 2010, als der Erdölpreis 26% höher war als im Jahr davor. Wo geht das ganze Geld nun hin? Werden mehr Sozialprojekte für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung finanziert? Das wäre toll. Das Geld wird nun benutzt, um weitere Waffen aus Russland zu kaufen und so die Militärs zu befriedigen und um chinesische Elektrogeräte einzuführen, um so Wahlergebnisse bei den 2012-Wahlen zu "optimieren". Früher war PDVSA eine Firma, die Welttechnologie produzierte. Nun ist sie die Kasse der Militärs. Unsere Forscher und Entwickler wandern aus.

Industriestaaten und Öl, Öl, Öl

Spiegel berichtet, wie die Industriestaaten den Markt mit Öl 'fluten', um den Preis zu drücken. 60 Millionen werden nun verkauft.

Was wird passieren? Wie wird dies in Venezuela wirken?

Meiner Meinung nach wird dies die Preise mittelfristig kaum beeinflussen.

Verzeihung, aber ich habe keine Zeit mehr, um das heut all das zu erklären!

PDVSA needs more money

In a Russian newspaper, Kommersant, you can read how Venezuela's state oil company, PDVSA, is flirting with TNK-BP, a Russian oil company.

The Venezuelan company is offering TNK-BP 40% of PetroMongas's share from today's 17%. But here you have the catch: it all depends on how the ongoing litigation with ExxonMobil goes and on the share price.

The Russians think this would mean about 150,000 to 200,000 barrels a day. Setty's verdict: PDVSA is short of money...one more time.

And you can also read in El Universal how PDVSA wants to open up the 2022 bonds for 1.5 billion dollars.  By Toutatis, this is in the middle of Venezuela's longest and largest oil boom.

This picture does NOT show the Venezuelan government. I repeat: it does not show the Venezuelan goverment. It is a representation of a black hole in front of the Large Magellanic Cloud