English
Español
More on Derwick Oil & Gas. A document leaked to this site shows that Derwick Oil & Gas (the "Creditor"), a Barbados co owned and managed by Alejandro Betancourt and Francisco Convit, committed to give a $35 million loan to Gazprombank Latin America Ventures B.V. (the "Borrower"), a joint venture between Derwick and GPB Global Resources B.V., in turn a fully owned Gazprom subsidiary. The "Derwick Loan" is referred to in the document as "each of the loan(s) made by the Creditor to the Borrower under the Financing Agreement dated 29 June 2012 between the Creditor, the Borrower and GPB Global Resources B.V., and the loan agreement entered into by the Creditor and the Borrower on December 18, 2012".
Clause 2.4 reads "The Loan Amount shall be transferred to the Borrower in the United Sates dollars in full before April 25th, 2013".
Clause 2.6 reads "The Borrower shall pay interest to the Creditor at the interest rate of LIBOR 12 months plus 8.33% (eight 33/100 percent) per annum in accordance to the terms and conditions of the present Loan Agreement (the "Interest")." It goes on to say that interests will be "calculated on the actual number of days in a year (act/act) and accrued accrued to the outstanding Loan amount. Same clause also establishes that "interest shall be capitalized (compounded) annually...".
The parties agreed to be governed by English law in the deal, and any disputes referred to "arbitration in accordance with the Rules of London Court of International Arbitration (the "LCIA Rules"). The arbitrations shall be conducted in London...".
Francisco Convit signed on behalf of the Creditor while Boris Ivanov did so for the Borrower. Correspondence addresses, as well as bank details (see image below) of parties, are included.
There's a number of immediate questions that pop into mind:
- Why would one of Russia's largest energy conglomerates take an expensive $35 million loan from a totally obscure shell, without any track record in the oil and gas industry to speak of?
- Why did Gazprom agree to pay Derwick LIBOR + 8.33%?
- Why did Gazprom agree to an oil & gas production partnership with Derwick in Venezuela (Gazprombank Latin America Ventures B.V.), considering that Gazprom has done -and can do again- deals with PDVSA directly?
Readers may remember that Derwick offered oil concessions to disgraced BTG Pactual execs, acting as agents / holders of PDVSA concessions. It also approached Morgan Stanley energy desk folks, with offers of oil and gas, through a former US Ambassador to the Dominican Republic. Evidence of payments to Gazprombank Latin America Ventures has now surfaced. The leaked loan agreement is the most conclusive sign yet of Derwick's payment of bribes to get into energy deals with the Venezuelan State, and the clearest indication of money laundering.
Sources within the Venezuelan regime have told us there's an ongoing investigation into Derwick's contracts, and PDVSA and other institutions are planning to prosecute. This is, of course, utter bullshit. The last thing PDVSA / chavismo are going to do, is to launch corruption probes against themselves. But the deal between Derwick and Gazprom above does merit attention by chavista thugs, even if it is to consider appointing Derwick as chief negotiators, so that Venezuela stops pawning the house on cents on the dollar...
