Trump’s Venezuela Sanctions Put Russian Billions at Risk
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-31/oil-sanctions-ratchet-up-pressure-on-sechin-s-big-venezuela-betAs U.S. sanctions against Venezuela’s state oil company ripple through the market, there’s one company with more at stake than most: its Russian counterpart, Rosneft PJSC.
Rosneft Chief Executive Officer Igor Sechin has personally spearheaded Russia’s support for President Nicolas Maduro’s government and over the past five years, the Russian oil company has funneled more than $7 billion in Venezuela, largely through loans to be repaid in future crude deliveries....
...Rosneft has stakes in five onshore oil projects in Venezuela, which it co-owns with Petroleos de Venezuela SA, as well as two offshore gas projects. The oil projects produced 8.06 million tons in 2017, of which Rosneft’s share was 3.14 million tons, or about 60,000 barrels a day -- around 1.3 percent of the Russian company’s crude production.
The loans Rosneft gave Venezuela’s state oil company are much more financially significant to the Russian company. In 2014, Rosneft made $4 billion in prepayments to PDVSA in exchange for future oil deliveries; in 2016-17, the Russian company added a further $2.5 billion to the total....