MOSCOW (MRC) -- Venezuela’s state-run oil company PDVSA said its financial debt fell less than 0.1% in 2019 from the prior year to some USD34.5 billion, though it remained in default on its bonds as sanctions freeze it out of the global banking system, said Reuters.
PDVSA, which is short for Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., has stopped paying interest on most its bonds, and together with Venezuela’s government has accumulated billions of dollars in late interest payments.
The company’s announcement, in the form of an advisory in a local newspaper last week, said it owed almost USD25.2 billion to bondholders, up slightly from USD24.7 billion at the end of 2018.
PDVSA said its commercial debts with foreign joint venture partners, including Chevron Corp and China National Petroleum Corp, dipped to USD2.65 billion by the end of 2019, down from USD2.66 billion at the end of the prior year.
The company, which has not published a complete annual report since 2017, did not detail other obligations, such as pending debt to providers, an issue that has contributed to declining output in recent years.
PDVSA defaulted on some of its bonds in 2017 and on the rest of its bonds in 2019. It is in default on USD6 billion in interest and principle.
Venezuela reported to OPEC an average crude production of about 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2019, its lowest level in almost 75 years amid sanctions imposed by the United States to oust socialist President Nicolas Maduro, lack of investment capital and staff, and mismanagement.
As MRC informed before, in May 2019, Curacao’s state-owned Isla oil refinery received an exemption from US sanctions on PDVSA, the Caribbean island’s government said in a statement. The US Treasury Department slapped sanctions on PDVSA in late January in a bid to force out socialist President Nicolas Maduro, who has overseen a collapse in the OPEC member nation’s economy. The license for the refinery, along with two other related companies, will allow the facility to continue to do business with US companies through Jan. 15, 2020.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,904,410 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments increased from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,161,830 tonnes in January-November 2019, up by 7% year on year. Deliveries of all grades of propylene polymers increased, with the homopolymer PP segment accounting for the largest increase.
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