May 2020

In the latest exhibit of "news" related to Venezuela, Bloomberg took a page out of Reuters' plagiarism book and published a report about Libre Abordo, Schlager Group, Grupo JOMADI and PDVSA.

#plagiarism, @reuters style: https://t.co/iuXybw3GdP pic.twitter.com/cWyH5V8SvN

UPDATE 30/05/2020 - In another chapter of the Nynas saga, we learn that Nynässtiftelsen, the new foundation PDVSA proposed to Treasury to complete reorganisation process, is controlled by Bo Askvik, Nynas' CEO. To recap: Nynas called in administrators due to Treasury's sanctions against PDVSA / Nicolas Maduro's regime. Sanctions were blocking Nynas to get out of practical bankruptcy.

As soon as we became aware of Iran's flotilla of gasoline cargoes headed for Venezuela, we said:

Couple of rulings this week, one by the U.S. Supreme Court and another by a Delaware judge, have set the stage for the permanent loss of CITGO, the most important overseas asset Venezuela had left. The rulings side with Crystallex in its attempt to enforce a $1.4 billion judgement due to expropriation of its Venezuela assets by Hugo Chavez.

Check this out: after picking Juan Guaido, the Trump administration placed a bunch of sanctions on Venezuela / PDVSA. Said sanctions regime put the fear of god on a number of international energy players that ended up leaving the scene. The objective was to remove Nicolas Maduro, but the riskier it got for established companies to engage in business with Venezuela / PDVSA, the faster the void was filled by nimble shells run by thugs eager to cash in.

This site first became aware of David Rivera around the time David Osío was crowing about some gong the U.S. Congress was allegedly going to bestow on him, for "distinguished contributions". Rivera organised the charade.

UPDATED 15/05/2020 - The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) removed Nynas from its list of sanctioned entities yesterday. Nynas published a release, in which it claimed that PDVSA (Nynas' majority shareholder) had "...reduced the percentage of Nynas shares it owns to 15 percent of all shares currently issued.

The recent record of U.S. government intervention in Venezuela sucks. Is out with Operation Condor and Washington Consensus, in with putsch by tweet. Regime change nowadays is by betting on the wrong horse, siding with cabals of entirely useless allies, while continously overestimating charlatans and underestimating chavismo, which is the most formidable foe to have ever come out of Latin America. What the world needs, what the region and Venezuela, in particular, need is more Charlie Wilson and less John Bolton.

UPDATE 08/05/2020 - 09:55 GMT | Alex Saab adventures into oil aren't new. There was a time when he had to make use of "decent" intermediaries, like Jean Paul Rivas, in energy trading attempts. No more. U.S. Treasury sanctions have pushed PDVSA into Saab's arms. He is no longer toxic. His characteristic stench goes undetected in the company of Nicolas Maduro, Cilia, and Tareck el Aisami: Venezuela's new oil minister.

A restructuring proposal to take PDVSA back to its core business was making the rounds recently. Out with importing food, feeding chicken and building cardboard housing, in with amending laws to attract foreign investment and to allow PDVSA to become minority partner, recovering refineries, increase output and decrease taxes and royalties. U.S. sanctions, globe's oil glut, and the Chinavirus must have precipitated the move, which, has to be said, is and has been the only solution.