Posted on 07/23/2014 11:12:00 PM PDT by Citizen Zed
China Has Given More Than $40 Billion in Loans Since 2008 in Exchange for Oil.
Mr. Xi and his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro, signed more than a dozen financial and bilateral cooperation agreements, including a renewal of a joint development fund in which China will contribute $4 billion that Venezuela will repay with an additional 100,000 barrels a day in crude.
"Everything we do with China is for the happiness of our people," Mr. Maduro said during a televised signing ceremony on Monday.
Venezuela exports more than 500,000 barrels of oil a day to China, with nearly half of it going toward repaying the loans.
(Excerpt) Read more at m.us.wsj.com ...
Although it is a long and expensive journey for oil to be shipped from Venezuela to China, it is likely that the oil China buys from Venezuela never goes China but is traded on the international market may well end up in Houston while Canadian oil or Arabian oil, in effect traded for the Venezuelan stuff, goes on to China.
The pusillanimity of the Western European governments in dealing with the Russians over Ukraine can be traced to their energy needs. Many German politicians, like Gerhard Schroeder, have been bought and sold by the Russian gas company. Clearly, the geopolitical power of petroleum and the corruption that goes with it is working against America and will continue to work against America so long as Obama is in power.
How much of the opposition in Europe to fracking is bought and paid for by Russia?
The fungibility of oil means that merely controlling a single source does not stop the flow nor does it curb the corruption.
Obviously China’s $40 billion did not include toilet paper for the needy Venezuelans.
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