Venezuela Begins Publishing Oil Basket Price In Yuan
Two days after the WSJ confirmed Maduro’s earlier threat that he would stop accepting US Dollars as payment for crude oil imports, Venezuela has done just that.
As a reminder, and as we reported previously, in an effort to circumvent U.S. sanctions, Venezuela told oil traders that it will no longer receive or send payments in dollars. As a result, oil traders who export Venezuelan crude or import oil products into the country have begun converting their invoices to euros.
Furthermore, Venezuela’s state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA, or PdVSA (whose bankruptcy is fast approaching), told its private joint venture partners to open accounts in euros and to convert existing cash holdings into Europe’s main currency, said one project partner. The new payment policy hasn’t been publicly announced, but Vice President Tareck El Aissami, who has been blacklisted by the U.S., said Friday, “To fight against the economic blockade there will be a basket of currencies to liberate us from the dollar.”
Fast forward to today, when according to a statement on the Venezuela oil ministry, the country’s weekly crude oil and petroleum basket “will be published in Chinese Yuan” – oddly, not in Euros as the WSJ hinted – going forward. We can only assume that Venezuela avoided the European currency on concerns that Brussels may follow in D.C.’s footsteps and impose financial sanctions on the Maduro regime next. Which meant that the only “safe” currency to transact in, was that of the country’s two big sources of vendor (and commodity) financing: China and Russia. For now Venezuela has picked the former.
The ministry also unveiled a price of 306.26 Yuan per barrel for the week of Sept. 11-15, up 1.8% from the 300.91 in the previous week, saying “the more favorable outlook on world oil demand and reports of lower global production contributed to the strengthening of crude oil prices this week.”
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