Here’s an oil-exporting country that is taking advantage of the low price of oil to eliminate subsidies. That may be a tough policy to maintain when prices rise again, but at least they are trying.
You can see they did a reasonably good job of this transition by the fact that it hasn’t been in the news. No riots, no panic. Here’s a study of how the state sought public support for the change, then started it in 2013.
Interesting.
(Yes, I corrected spelling in the headline. Originally it was a secret message about my conversation partner, Mr. Soon.)
Remember how back in April I said that Venezuela was importing far less fuel from the US, indicating refineries were coming back on line? Yeah, no worries, I didn’t remember that either. Anyway, looks like I spoke too soon. A few more months go by, you see the trend is still that Venezuela is buying way too much US fuel.
That’s total fuel exports from the US to Venezuela, through June, in thousands of barrels a day. After falling to just 7,000 for one month, the figure jumped right back up to pre-Amuay disaster levels and has stayed there. Why? Continue reading
Venezuela is buying ever more finished motor fuel from the USA. In January, it bought a record 113,000 barrels a day of the stuff. Meanwhile, it halted purchases of MTBE and special naphthas, which I previously referred to as the “good” imports. It’s grim.
Source: US EIA
Setty's notebook 