{"id":23049,"date":"2017-03-02T21:37:35","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T02:37:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=23049"},"modified":"2017-03-02T21:37:35","modified_gmt":"2017-03-03T02:37:35","slug":"venezuela-is-down-to-its-last-10b-as-debt-payments-loom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=23049","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela Is Down To Its Last $10B As Debt Payments Loom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Venezuela Is Down To Its Last $10B As Debt Payments Loom<\/a><\/h3>\n\"Maduro<\/picture>\n
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Venezuela\u2019s central bank is down to its last\u00a0$10.5 billion<\/a>\u00a0in foreign reserves, according to the institution\u2019s most recent report on the country\u2019s financials.<\/p>\n

Over the remainder of 2017, Caracas needs to fund $7.2 billion in debt payments \u2013 an amount that it can only meet if oil prices spike far higher than the ongoing boosts caused by OPEC\u2019s output reduction agreement.<\/p>\n

Current reserves stand 66 percent lower than levels in 2011, when the government held $30 billion in foreign currencies to spend on loan repayments and other official business.<\/p>\n

“The question is: Where is the floor?”<\/em>\u00a0Siobhan Morden, head of Latin America fixed income strategy at Nomura Holdings, told CNN Money.\u00a0“If oil prices stagnate and foreign reserves reach zero, then the clock is going to start on a default.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Venezuela\u2019s financial report for 2016 stated that roughly $7.7 billion of the remaining $10.5 billion in foreign reserves had been preserved in gold. Last year, in order to fulfill debt obligations, Caracas began shipping gold to Switzerland.<\/p>\n

The drastic fall in oil prices in 2014 and widespread corruption have both caused an economic meltdown in the South American country, where citizens had become accustomed to imported goods paid for by fossil fuel revenues.<\/p>\n

President Nicolas Maduro has resorted to opening the country\u2019s border with Colombia to allow Venezuelans to purchase necessary medical and day-to-day supplies.<\/p>\n

Venezuelan state-run oil company PDVSA\u2019s\u00a0default is probable<\/a>, according to the ratings agency\u00a0Fitch<\/a>, which cited the oil giant\u2019s weak liquidity position and high amortization scheduled for 2017 as the causes of the default problem last month.<\/p>\n

“Should oil prices remain around current levels, average recovery may lead to additional future defaults to further reduce obligations and allow for necessary transfers to the government,”<\/em>\u00a0said Fitch\u2019s senior director Lucas Aristizabal.<\/p>\n

The company has projected that its oil production will maintain its 23-year-low in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Venezuela Is Down To Its Last $10B As Debt Payments Loom Venezuela\u2019s central bank is down to its last\u00a0$10.5 billion\u00a0in foreign reserves, according to the institution\u2019s most recent report on the country\u2019s financials. Over the remainder of 2017, Caracas needs to fund $7.2 billion in debt payments \u2013 an amount that it can only meet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2492,122,195,4977,2422,592,9993,851,14559],"class_list":["post-23049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-caracas","tag-central-bank","tag-debt","tag-fitch-ratings-agency","tag-nicolas-maduro","tag-oil-price","tag-oilprce-com","tag-venezuela","tag-zainab-calcuttawala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23050,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23049\/revisions\/23050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}