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Venezuela: oil gloom over Caracas
As Hugo Chávez leads yet another lavish parade celebrating Venezuela’s freedom from the Spanish empire – Thursday is the 201st anniversary since independence was declared – it’s as well to remember...
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Ecuador: going from bad to worse?
It’s been a week to forget for Ecuador. On Monday, the Andean country startled investors by posting its weakest quarterly growth in two years. Concerns that falling oil prices could cause the country’s...
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Russia consumers rack up debt
Russia’s consumer spending spree could be ending in tears. A credit-fuelled surge has led households to rack up unprecedented levels of consumer debt – so much so that in 2012 some 80 per cent of new...
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US import drop hits Nigeria oil exports
The Nigerian oil industry faces a difficult 2013 as shale oil in the US takes an increasing share of the north American market. Togo-based Ecobank has said that Nigerian crude oil exports to the US...
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Indian inflation feels the heat from Iraq
The violence in Iraq has put the nation’s oil exports at risk, prompting a rise in global oil prices. For India, which relies on imports for over 75 per cent of its oil and gas needs, that could spell...
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Venezuela and sliding oil prices
Blame the Empire. Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolás Maduro on Wednesday accused the United States of oversupplying the market -in his words, “inundating the market”- to rattle oil prices. His...
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Venezuela dances the tango with Citgo
Venezuelans do not really dance the tango. But in the mooted sale of Citgo, the country’s US refining operation, that is what the socialist government has been doing – taking one step forward, two...
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Venezuela: to act or not to act, that is the question
One could talk about Venezuela’s economic policy in Shakespearean terms. To devalue or not to devalue; to converge foreign exchange rates or not to converge; to raise the price of the world’s cheapest...
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EM oil producers risk ratings downgrade on low crude price
Bahrain, Angola, Ecuador and Venezuela rank as the emerging markets (EM) most vulnerable to a downgrade in their sovereign credit ratings if oil prices do not recover in 2015, Fitch Ratings said in a...
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Could the “cancelled” South Stream pipeline be revived?
Vladimir Putin seemed pretty emphatic on Monday that Russia would stop construction of the South Stream gas pipeline, shelving a strategically important project that Moscow was counting on to cement...
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