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?

Native Americans against Chinese in the Amazon

If you speak German, you have to read this article from Spiegel. If you don't, you have to at least get the gist of it by using some machine translation tool.

I'm busy, so I can't explain the whole thing right now. It's about illegal miners, the Chinese and CITIC, interests for gold and diamonds on one side and the native Americans and the environment on the other.

I will later come back and give some details. 

How to promote underdevelopment and autocracies in the XXI Century

If you have a country where the average citizen has very low education levels, whee most think the country is rich just because of its natural resources and you are the ruling party and you have no ethics: what would you do to remain in power? Would you use tanks and police forces to compel people to follow you? No. You just pawn the country's future by selling very cheaply those natural resources to a new colonizing country.

A socialist microwave

That is how the ministry of "the Popular Power for Trade", Edmée Betancourt, is telling us now that the "social" program for household appliances is going to be expanded. 

Venezuela's current government has so far spent over 20 billion dollars in what is called the Chinese Fund. The Fund gives China millions of barrels of oil for many years and in exchange for that Venezuela's ruling party, government and state, which are basically one and the same, get, among other goodies, Chinese refrigerators, Chinese washing machines, Chinese flat screens and Chinese mixers...to be sold at "socialist prices" among would-be voters...sorry, I mean citizens.

A socialist corporation

The Bolivar is overvalued and the currency exchange is fixed so that a Bolivarian mafia has taken hold of the system. That makes imported devices very expensive. The government says prices at the private market are so high because of capitalism...even if the same or better devices are cheaper in Europe or the States or even other Latin American countries. So now Bolivarian employees sell the Chinese devices at very low prices, at "socialist prices", as the Chávez employees claim.

Most people don't know those Haier washing machines and Haier flat screens are actually being paid by the petrodollars that won't be invested in their children's schools and their children's hospitals in the decade to come.

But then: Chávez revolutionaries really want to win next year's elections.

Ethics doesn't matter.

Socialist washing machine, socialist refrigerator, socialist microwave and socialist exhaust fan

The Chinese are going for gold in our jungles

中国中信集团公司, get use to it

Chávez himself has given a concession for a hugely important gold mine - Las Cristinas - to the Chinese corporation CITIC with shortly before leaving for Cuba to be operated yet again. Las Cristinas is located close to El Dorado, not far from the border with Guyana, in a territory the British invaded in the mid of the XIX century.

Now the Chinese company that is building houses for Venezuelans who apparently can't build houses, the same Chinese company that has become one of the main providers of equipment for oil production, is going to be in charge of getting gold from the territory of the Pemon indians. They just got in time to get that concession from Chávez before that uncertain trip of his.

The military caudillo had expropriated Las Cristinas from Cristallex some time ago. Journalist Bodzin had written a lot about the mine (see for instance, here).

There was no Parima Lake with gold as Spaniards thought, but there is El Dorado and it only hurts and destroys

In 2010 Cristallex had made a strategic partnership with the Resource Subsidiary of China Railway Engineering Corporation, I suppose trying to get a "non imperialist player" on the game. That didn't move forward. The Russian Rusoro also had intentions to go into the business (dating back from 2009), but after yet a new empty declaration of "nationalization of mining resources" in 2011 it pulled out. I say it was an empty declaration because in reality there has been a law since Colonial times stating earth resources belong to the State and can only be given on concession...Rusoro may have really given up because they realised Chávez does "lo que le da la gana". For a time they did have some hope they could exploit Venezuela's most promising gold mine.

I had always a very bad feeling about the work of mining companies in one of the most delicate natural reserves of the world. Stay tuned. The Chinese are in.

Ist Chávez bescheuert und durchgeknallt?

Unsere kleine Umfrage ergab folgendes: 

88% von Euch denkt, dass der Militärcaudillo Chávez tatsächlich  grosse psychiatrische Probleme hat 

8% denkt das nicht

4% hat keine Ahnung. 

Natürlich war diese Umfrage nicht gerade wissenschaftlich, man hat aber schon einen Eindruck über das, was Deutschsprachigen über den geistigen Zustand unseres Präsidenten denken.

Ob er so krank ist oder nicht, hat er immer noch eine sehr kräftige Waffe: Erdölgelder ohne Kontrolle. Wie der Blogger Miguel und andere herausgefunden haben, hat die venezolanische Regierung Verträge mit China abgeschlossen, wonach Erdöl an die Asiaten verkauft werden, um Darlehen so schnell wie möglich zu bekommen. Ein grosser Teil des Geldes wird dann ohne jede Aufsichtskontrolle von Chávez selbst benutzt. Das Geld wird nämlich zu einem Fond geschickt wird, der nur von der Zentralregierung verwaltet wird. Das Gesetz sagt, dass  die Nationalversammlung die Verwendung der Erdöleinkommen bewilligen muss, was hier nicht passiert. Ein Teil dieser Ressourcen geht an das Programm "Misión del Buen Vivir", Mission des Guten Lebens, das Venezolaner billige chinesische Geräte verkauft. Es handelt sich um Milliarden Dollar.

Die venezolanische Regierung wollte eigentlich ein Darlehen von über 100 Milliarden Dollar von den Chinesen, wie man nun aus einigen Dokumenten entnehmen kann. Die Ausländer haben darüber nur gelacht. Man fragt sich, wie schlecht die gegenwärtige venezolanische Regierung sein kann, um während eines solchen Erdölbooms - der längste in unserer Geschichte - so viele Darlehen nötig zu haben.

Wahlen sind Wahlen und die Militärs können sich gar nicht leisten, viele Stimmen zu verlieren. Es geht einfach nicht.

When even the Chinese complain

Updated

Some days ago the Chinese in the Venezuelan city of Barquisimeto marched to protest the lack of security in the city. They had been the target of numerous kidnappings and other crimes for quite some years now but the murder of Jian Kong Zhen, a young entrepreneur, was the last straw.

Those Chinese are usually people who do not find their way in places such as Shanghai or Guandong and look for opportunities abroad, whether it is in Lesotho, in Venezuela, in Spain or Sweden. The Chinese government usually keeps a low profile when it comes to its citizens abroad. Chinese expats tend to build upon very close networks and solve their issues without too much publicity. It really has to be pretty bad for them to protest in a foreign country. We are talking not about Venezuelan citizens of Chinese origin but mostly Chinese people who have been just some years in the country. Even they got fed up and decided to protest.

And now notorious minister for tourism, Alejandro Fleming, says there is an international campaign to create a negative image for tourism in Venezuela. In his "Bolivarian-military" logic, the fact US citizens are among the most frequent foreign tourists to Venezuela is paradoxical.

A Chávez honcho does not seem to understand the US is the most populated country in America, its population has a high income level and it is absolutely normal then that it would represent one of the main sources for tourism in any American country. What Alejandro Fleming does not seem to grasp is that US tourists - or German tourists or tourists from most of the world - are less likely to visit Venezuela than almost any other South American country. 

It seems Alejandro Fleming hasn't taken a normal bus after 8pm in Venezuela. Actually: I don't think he ever took a bus in safe Europe, where he was driven in a nice Mercedes while he stayed there as ambassador for Venezuela.

If Mr Fleming took a bus in Venezuela after 8pm or if he really were to walk around after 8pm without his bodyguards he would know why even the Chinese are protesting in Venezuela.

With your petrodollars I'll buy you Chinese refrigerators and you vote for me

The Background

This is how the deal came to be: last year Chávez's military government signed an agreement with the Chinese to give oil to China for just a fraction of the market price during one decade in exchange for a $10 billion dollar loan (or payment, the details are not clear) plus Chinese products worth 10 billion dollars more.

Chinese appliances for Venezuelan oil: XXI Century Socialism?

The Deal

And this is the deal for Venezuelans: Chávez announces a "social programme" called My Well Equipped Home. According to this programme, the Venezuelan government will sell 3 million Chinese home appliances at "half the capitalist price". Chávez announced this in one of his many cadenas (all radio and TV stations in Venezuela had to broadcast his speeches)*. 

I wrote about that back in 2010. This is one of the tools Chávez and his pseudo-revolutionaries want to use to secure their victory for the 2012 elections. It is probable some of these appliances will end being distributed for free at the end, depending on what polls say.

The Past and the Future

Some Venezuelans will fall for this. They won't see that money comes from their oil, which could have been sold at several times the price in order to invest in Venezuela's future,  in quality education for all,  in sustainable development.  The question is how many will be so naive as not to see the Chinese appliances of today are the underdevelopment of tomorrow.

Chávez and his bolibourgeoisie are pawning Venezuelans' future in order to remain in power. In the nineties I remember how small Venezuelan startups began to produce basic electronic appliances. Back then oil prices had been at their lowest for  a long time and life was hard. Venezuelans were trying to find new ways of generating income. Unfortunately, it was going to take time and before those companies could generate enough revenues, Chávez was elected president and oil prices started to go up, up, up, up. Now those companies are gone. We import more than ever.

Humberto Ortega, president of the Bank of Venezuela, minister of the Ministry for Public Banking and one of Chávez's puppets, stated: "this (the Chinese appliance programme) is not thanks to the [private] banking sector, this is thanks to our president Hugo Chávez, to our government, who, in their concern for all Venezuelans, implemented this kind of programme to provide our nation with the largest amount of happiness". He did not say this is as long as the Chinese can get extremely cheap oil.

 

Venezuela is becoming more parasitic than it was before. This is good for the Chinese in their wild capitalist development. This is particularly good for the Haier Corporation. This is excellent for CEO Zhang Ruimin. This is bad for Venezuela,  which is only becoming more of a banana republic than it was before.

The r in the picture above does not stand for "revolution", but for "registered"

* Remember: less than 30% of the population can watch TV that is critical of Chávez, few read anything but sports newspapers and most of the "big private media" Chávez apologists talk about - Venevisión etc- broadcast since 2004 mostly soap operas and baseball games.

** I hope useful idiots have seen by now the farce of such organisations as Veniran.

Kudos for Norway! Shame on China's current government

Today the Nobel Peace ceremony will take place in Norway. Liu Xiaobo won't be there, as he is jailed for promoting democracy (some Chinese nationalists say "for trying to destroy China and transforming it into a Western colony again). His wife won't be there as she is under house arrest. His friends won't be there because China has not allowed them to leave the country...or rather the Chinese apparatchiks who think they know what's best for China haven't allowed them to leave the country.

The Chinese government has behaved like a hysterical creature and has shown how out of touch it is with the world. It has used the cheapest Chauvinism to try to derail talks about human rights and freedom.

Apart from China, there were a group of countries with leaders that have no cojones. One of them is Venezuela. By the way, read if you have some time Francisco'sinteresting post about how the military regime in Venezuela is further curtailing freedom of expression.

Ps. some Chinese readers wrote me earlier saying Europe would not allow someone to say what Mr Liu was saying, about changing the constitution, etc. Rubbish. The European Union has European parliamentarians saying much more.

Kudos also to Ai Wei Wei, who talks here:

China, Liu Xiaobo und die Militärregierung in Venezuela

Endlich hat Chávez auf die Nachricht über den Nobelpreis für Frieden für Herrn Liu reagiert. Die Propagandamachine der venezolanischen Regierung VTV hat tagelang gewartet, bis der "Revolutionsführer" was erzählte. Hier könnt Ihr auf Spanisch lesen, was der ehemalige Putschist und gegenwärtige Präsident Venezuelas sagte.

Chávez erklärt, er lehnt die Befreiung von Liu Xiaobo völlig ab und solidarisiert sich mit der chinesischen Regierung. Er sagt, Liu sei ein Mann, der gefangen ist, weil er die Gesetze Chinas verletzt hat. Er erklärt nicht, um welche Gesetze es sich handelt.

Ferner sagt der Präsident, die Opposition in Venezuela sei eine Minderheit. Er sagt wohl nicht, seine "Mehrheit" in den letzten Wahlen bestehe -trotz aller Schikanen gegen die anderen- aus 48.13% der Stimmen gegen 47.22% und 3.14% für die alternativen Strömungen MUD und PPT.

Der Militärbonze kritisiert die Opposition, die "behauptet, die chinesische Regierung sei totalitär und verletzte die Menschenrechte".

"Die Vaterlandsverräter (escuálido, wörtlich Schwächlinge) ...behaupten, sie seien die Sieger im Lande. Ich sage, dass das Volk auf sie wartet (?), um ihnen zu zeigen, dass sie nie zum Präsidentenpalais zurückkommen werden."

Chávez wechselt dann zu Drohungen. Er sagt, dass wenn die anderen zurückkämen, sie als erstes die Beziehungen mit China abbrechen würden, womit alle Abkommen mit diesem Land gestoppt sein würden. "Alle Agrarsysteme (?), alle Wohnungsprojekte (eigentlich keine), den Bau von Satelliten mit China (in Wirklichkeit Import von einem Satellit, der noch sehr viele Probleme hat), die Militärtechnologie (oder auf Deutsch Waffenimport), die Krediten und langfristige Darlehen (d.h. Pfandgeld für überbilliges Erdöl auf Jahren) würden verloren gehen".

Man kann sicher sein, dass die chinesische Regierung alles tun wird, damit der Militär Chávez trotz venezolanischen Volks weiter an der Macht bleibt.

Hier könnt Ihr lesen, warum Herr Liu im Gefängnis sitzt.

Anscheinend ist Frau Liu nun unter Hausarrest.

Chinesen in noch zum Teil demokratischem Hong-Kong protestieren gegen die Festname von Liu.

The miseries of a military "socialist" regime

So far I haven't seen any report in the Venezuelan state media about the Nobel Price for Peace for Chinese dissident Liu, who is currently in a Chinese prison. I wonder if the Venezuelan regime is asking the Chinese what it wants the Venezuelans to say.

I don't see anything on AVN and I don't see anything on VTV about the Nobel prize for peace. The only thing I see is an article about the Nobel prize for literature: Vargas llosa. AVN stated that Vargas Llosa "criticized Latin America and praised Europe".

The Venezuelan Chávez media agencies seem increasingly like a new version of Soviet Pravda with Fox News and a bit of banana republic colour.

The Chinese pawn broker and Venezuela or "espero que usen vaselina"

The Venezuelan government had announced some days earlier that it was getting Chinese investments for 20 billion dollars. I wrote about that here and Miguel wrote much more extensively about the same subject here. Today we can read in Spanish an interview with Ramírez, the Red Baron of PDVSA. In today's Venezuela, the public has hardly any access to information about the big deals Chavismo closes with foreign powers. We can only hope to get some bits of information from the Venezuelan regime when it feels like doing it.

Basically, in clear text, these are some of the items we get from the article (some is very clear, some just needs a little bit of between-the-lines reading):

• Chavismo gets "20 billion dollars" to be paid in oil and oil products
  

• Venezuela will have to give 100000 oil barrels per year for that (at least this year, but I don't think it will get "better" for us)

• Venezuela would be thus sending up to now a total of 200 thousand barrels of oil to pay loans to China (as there were already 2 credits for 8 billion "dollars")

• Those 20 billions are not supposed to be for oil projects (for which PDVSA needs money as Miguel wrote); the regime is currently deciding "in what programmes to use the money" (which means they basically are running out of money and what to be sure they have enough for the September elections)
  

• As Miguel had found out, the Chinese will be giving 50% of the amount in dollars and 50% in yuan

• Ramírez said that they are getting those yuan because Venezuela "has the strategy of not depending too much on dollars". Ramírez also said the yuan is a freely convertible currency, which is half the truth (or a third of the truth, we will actually get the 2/3). Now I wonder what happens if the yuan gets revalued as the US is expecting. What are we going to pay? Ramírez also says "nuestra alianza es ahora con China". This goes along the line of Chávez, who said the commitment was done because his system and political views were here to stay as the Chinese ones. So basically we go now from US dependency to Chinese dependency. Great.
  

The PDVSA baron also talked about the nationalization of service companies. He said the government would pay "when we are ready" and that those companies, having problems with their workers, "even own us money". In clear text: the government still does not have money for them, so it will just threaten them in order to make them stop bothering.

The Venezuelan government is currently receiving several times the amount of petrodollars governments in the nineties were getting from oil exports and yet it is pushing Venezuela into more and more debts. I am sure the regime will have money aplenty for this year's elections, just like in 2004, even if the nation will have to pay for it very dearly.

And what is the opposition doing? They have no clue.



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