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Venezuela's state-owned oil company, Petroleum of Venezuela, Pdvsa, has announced that it has made its interest payments for its 2027, 2020 and 2017 bonds.
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The announcement, which was made on the company's social media account, comes amid a fresh round of economic sanctions trumped up against Venezuela by the United States and the European Union.
Pdvsa also revealed that since the beginning of November, imports of Venezuelan oil to the United States have declined to 56 percent compared to last year.
Apart from the sanctions, Pdvsa, Venezuela's main foreign exchange earner, has faced multi-pronged economic attacks due to a network of internal allies, many of whom have been detained by the Public Prosecutor's Office in recent months. Former Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz, who has since fled the country, allowed these groups to continue to operate, according to Mision Verdad.
In addition to external attacks and internal sabotage, Pdvsa is facing a series of sanctions for the issuance of debt, which has also complicated transactions with U.S. refineries for the purchase of crude oil. In recent months, U.S. banks, under pressure from the Treasury Department, have restricted credit notes that U.S. refineries need to pay for Venezuelan oil. The result is that imports and dividends in dollars have been reduced by half in comparison to 2016.
The announcement comes one day after the Venezuelan government released a public statement describing its first steps toward refinancing its foreign debt, “despite the attempts made by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, an entity linked to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, to prevent this."
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