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Venezuela’s PDVSA has begun making overdue interest payments on bonds

Venezuela’s cash-strapped state oil firm PDVSA says it has begun the process of paying overdue interest payments on four of its bonds, according to Reuters.

The payments had been originally due in November but the company invoked a 30-day grace period.

Even with the grace period the first of the four payments had been due on Friday – a $135m payment on its 2026 bond. The other three, all due on Monday, are for bonds maturing in 2021, 2024 and 2035.

PDVSA, properly named Petroleos de Venezuela SA, controls the biggest oil reserves in the world, many of them offshore.

But for some time now it has been struggling to pay suppliers and to maintain production levels because of oil’s price plunge amid multiple allegations of mismanagement and corruption at the company.

PDVSA’s ills have paralleled similar travails on the national scale as the country’s controversial socialist government has been wrestling with economic and social instability along with sanctions from the US.

Donal Scully

With 28 years experience writing and editing for newspapers in the UK and Hong Kong, Donal is now based in California from where he covers the Americas for Splash as well as ensuring the site is loaded through the Western Hemisphere timezone.
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