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Oil revenue down 99% due to US sanctions, but Iran helping: Maduro
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IANS | 30 Sep, 2020
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said that US financial sanctions
have caused Venezuela's oil revenue to plunge 99 per cent over the last
six years.
Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves, but
its oil industry is hobbled by US sanctions which have thrown the
country into its worst economic crisis in years, Press tv reported.
Maduro
said on Tuesday that 30 billion dollars have been lost each year since
2015, adding "it's impossible to imagine the amount of pressure placed
on our economy."
"For every 100 dollars obtained through oil
sales in 2014 we receive one today," which means oil revenues fell from
more than 56 billion dollars in 2013 "to less than 400 million dollars
last year", he said.
According to Maduro, Venezuela experienced
the "sharpest" foreign exchange losses in its history between 2014 and
2019. "In six years we lost 99% of our foreign exchange revenues," he
said.
The main reason for the huge drop in revenues was "the war
declared on oil prices," to "attack the world's major producers," he
said.
With most shipowners and oil traders shunning business with
Venezuela for fear of the sanctions, Iran has emerged as the only
country helping Caracas bring its refineries back to service and cope
with an acute fuel shortage.
The Iran-flagged tanker Forest, the
first of a group of three tankers transporting some 270,000 barrels of
Iranian fuel for Venezuela, entered the waters of the South American
nation on Monday, reports said.
The two following Iranian
tankers, the Faxon and the Fortune, are estimated to arrive in early
October. They are together expected to deliver about 820,000 barrels of
gasoline and other fuels, helping to ease shortages in Venezuela.
The
same vessels and two additional Iranian tankers delivered 1.5 million
barrels of gasoline and diesel fuel to Venezuela between May and June
despite US threats to stop them, while the South American nation shipped
a cargo vessel carrying alumina to Iran's Bandar Abbas port.
An
Iranian very large crude carrier (VLCC) is expected to leave Venezuela's
Jose port with 1.9 million barrels of Venezuelan heavy oil for sale in
Asia.
On Tuesday, Venezuela's Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza was
quoted as saying that his country had learnt from Tehran how to confront
the coercive US measures.
An Iranian supertanker that shipped
the country's first oil cargo to Venezuela last week despite US threats
to stop it is loading the Latin American country's crude for export,
Bloomberg reports.
Arreaza also said after talking with his
Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif via a video call that
Venezuela's historic relations with Iran are at their best.
Washington has sought to disrupt the deepening bilateral trade between the two countries.
Last
month, the US government went on a full-throttle propaganda campaign,
claiming that it had seized 1.116 million barrels of Iranian fuel
because it was bound for Venezuela.
Iran, however, asserted that
neither were the ships Iranian nor their owners or their cargo had any
connection to the Islamic Republic.
Venezuela pledged to
continue trade with Iran after the US announced new sanctions on Iranian
official entities as well as President Maduro this month.
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Customs Exchange Rates |
Currency |
Import |
Export |
US Dollar
|
66.20
|
64.50 |
UK Pound
|
87.50
|
84.65 |
Euro
|
78.25
|
75.65 |
Japanese
Yen |
58.85 |
56.85 |
As on 13 Aug, 2022 |
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