Posted on 04/03/2018 10:23:57 AM PDT by detective
Right under the radar, Venezuela is getting dumped by its two sugar daddies, Russia's state-linked Rosneft energy giant, and China's state-linked PetroChina. Bye-bye money, because this is a big blow.
The pair of them were slated to run two of the three of Venezuela's monster-big refineries in the Paraguana complex, Amuay and Cardon, two refineries that were the crown jewel of Venezuela's global oil presence. Back in the 1990s, these were the most advanced and best-run refineries in the world.
Today, they have fallen into such a state of shambles even the Russkis and Chicoms won't touch them. According to a report from Kallish Energy, the repair costs of the Chavista-managed socialist-run rubble is $10 billion with a 'b.' They'd have to shell that out just to get the darn things running and then would get ten years to run them and sell their products before forking them back over, free of charge, to the Venezuelan Chavista government, which ruined them in the first place.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The oil companies view Venezuela as a money pit no market forces can paper over as in the past, and pretty useless as a foreign policy instrument, given the cost.
Up to this point we’ve had riots and starvation. I wonder if this will be the tipping point that ignites a civil war. As bad as Venezuela is, that may be a good thing.
The Chavistas took out a mortgage with Russia and China using the refinaries as collateral then proceeded to burn down the house before the bank could take over.
Let it sink in...
CNN should be showing pictures of the starving Venezuelans every night on TV... with titles like, “THIS IS COMMUNISM IN ACTION" - "COMMUNISM BUILDING A NEW HELLHOLE IN SOUTH AMERICA’... "WATCH CHILDREN EAT DIRT.” ETC...
Venezuela is about to become the South American equivalent of Somalia at the rate things are going. Which is too bad because just their oil resources—if properly managed—could have made them the richest country on that continent going away.
Venezuela’s economy has degenerated and is so disorganized that even if you are willing to bribe the government, you have no assurance you’ll get what you paid for.
Socialism works great until you run out of other people’s money.
Watch this one. The key here is an anticipated repudiation of Chavista debts - the 5 billion to the Russkis is small beer compared to the debt to the Chinese, which may be ten times that or more, nobody but the principals really knows. Those were secured by oil that's still in the ground, that Venezuela can no longer refine itself, and that it cannot apparently deliver in usable form either. And all of the money that the Chavista government got for it is gone into party members' offshore bank accounts.
It means that if the Chinese and the Russians were to completely occupy the entire oil industry in that country, evict the current workers and pump oil 24/7 they'd still be running at a loss given that oil prices haven't risen to cover the cost. That oil in the ground hasn't simply been sold already, it's been sold multiple times, and not always to the same people.
The real irony is that the skilled workers who at least could have been running maintenance on the refineries were themselves evicted when the Chavistas took over, their jobs turned over to party loyalists who couldn't or wouldn't do them. Many are in Colombia now, whose own oil production has risen sixfold as a consequence. They might be enticed back, but not until after a regime change.
Maybe, or maybe a mass illegal immigration to adjoining countries forces the government to use the military to plug the holes, forcing a desperate citizenry to riot, with so much death from the putdowns, the OAS moves to topple the government, which steps down and ends up in prison while the rest of the world is expected to fund Venezuela’s rebuilding.
They will be told the US and the West were behind it all and it wasn’t socialism’s fault. Next time, it just has to be applied harder. Meanwhile the only organization capable of making money, the drug cartels, run the country for their own benefit, making Caracas the Amsterdam of South America.
Tourism booms, the kleptocracy remains in power, and the caravan rolls on.
Let’s send every American university instructor to Venezuela.
So they can eat them.
I’d like to see a poll asking what the Venezuelan people have learned from this ordeal.
It CAN’T be a hellhole..Pope Frankie says Hell doesn’t exist!
Must be the other kind of hole, made of the stuff I scraped off my boot when I came in from feeding the cows
Chicaps.....not Chicoms turning down the business
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