Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA, believed to be billions of dollars in arrears to various service providers, could avoid default if the price of crude stays at $50 or more per barrel, according to Bloomberg.
That was the opinion expressed by PDVSA president and national oil minister Eulogio Del Pino on Thursday.
Various service providers have cut back on dealings with Venezuela over PDVSA’s alleged non-payment of invoices and in March backlogs of vessels were reported at the main oil terminal of Jose, also over monies owed.
PDVSA is trying to reconfigure the contract s of some of its biggest service providers.
Del Pino said a steady oil price of $50 should enable PDVSA – short for Petroleos de Venezuela SA – to meet its debt obligations.
The price of crude has picked up to almost $50 now, an improvement on the 12-year lows of early 2016 but still a far cry from the $121.06 that Venezuela needs to balance its budget.
Meanwhile a Venezuelan businessman on Thursday pleaded guilty in a Houston, Texas, court of bribing PDVSA officials in return for energy-supply contracts for himself and a partner in the US.
Roberto Enrique Rincon Fernandez made the plea deal in return for a maximum 13-year sentence rather than risk a punishment of more than 100 years at trial.
Rincon and a business partner in Miami, Abraham Jose Shiera Bastidas, are accused of illicitly securing around $1bn-worth of contracts in the bid-rigging scheme.
