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| "Delay when we need to pay you back...or we'll default on Oct. 28!" Investor relations, Venezuela-style. |
When oil prices were at $100 or higher, Venezuela was flying high, using oil revenues to fund "socialist"
PR stunts such as selling subsidized heating oil for poor Americans. As the price of oil tanked, however, the Venezuelan government has been less able to mount such extravagant displays of "generosity." After years and years of low oil prices, we instead have a situation in which state-owned oil company PDVSA is now threatening its creditors with default by next week if they do not accept the swap of bonds due in 2017 with new ones instead due in 2020:
Venezuela's government-run oil giant -- the country's largest source of cash -- is warning that it could default on its bonds as early as next week. Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., or PDVSA, failed to get investors to agree on a deal to push back debt payments by three years. The company said it is extending its deadline for a third time so investors can accept a deal by Friday night. This time, it warned that things could get messy. "If the exchange offers are not successful, it could be difficult for the company to make scheduled payments on its existing debt," PDVSA said in a statement Monday night.
PDVSA owes $1.6 billion in principal and interest on October 28 and another payment of $2.9 billion is due on November 2 for a separate bond. It's unclear if PDVSA may actually default or if it's trying to strong arm investors to take the deal. "I don't think they've prepared themselves for a default, I think it's mostly just a threat. The concern is that they're starting to talk about it," says Siobhan Morden, head of Latin America fixed income strategy at Nomura Holdings.
In total, Venezuela is asking investors to "swap" $5.3 billion of bonds due in 2017 with bonds due in 2020, essentially allowing the government to push back payments. But PDVSA hasn't been able to lure enough investors to accept the offering. It's led Standard & Poor's to cut its rating on PDVSA in mid-September to two notches above default.
What does PDVSA matter to Venezuela? Pretty much everything in terms of generating foreign exchange:
PDVSA represents much more than just an oil company. It is Venezuela's lifeline. Oil shipments make up over 95% of the country's export revenue -- that's cash the government badly needs to pay for imports of food and medicine, which are in short supply. Things have been so badly mismanaged that Venezuela's oil production hit a 13-year low over the summer after oil services provider such as Schlumberger (SLB) dramatically reduced operations earlier this year due to unpaid bills.
PDVSA has been used as a government piggy bank, but it's almost run out of funds. Also consider that the PRC, which has given Venezuela an estimated $60B, is
no longer willing to give more:
After pouring billions into Venezuela over the last decade, China is cutting off new loans to the Latin American nation. It's a major reversal of relations between the two nations, experts say. It also comes at the worst time for Venezuela, which is spiraling into an economic and humanitarian crisis.
"China is not especially interested in loaning more money to Venezuela," says Margaret Myers, a director at Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington research group that tracks loans between China and Latin America.
But barter trade--China was being repaid in oil--doesn't quite work when PVDSA is so poorly run that its output has fallen to multi-year lows that there's not much left to barter:
Since 2007, China's state banks loaned Venezuela $60 billion, according to the Inter-American Dialogue. That's more that it loaned to any other Latin American country. China is considered Venezuela's most important creditor. Of that, Venezuela still owes China approximately $20 billion, experts say, and there's no sign that it can pay back the amount amid its crisis.
Venezuela pays back the vast majority of its loans to China with oil shipments. Last year, Venezuela's state-run oil company, PDVSA, shipped about 579,000 barrels of oil per day to China, according to the company's financial audit.
Without Chinese aid--and assuming oil prices don't spike back above $100 anytime soon--you can see the endgame in sight for PDVSA.
