The Russian invasion of Ukraine has already produced two unexpected winners: Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.
The weekend, the United States initiated a diplomatic opening towards both countries, which it needs to meet Russian oil that is disappearing from the market as a result of sanctions on financial transactions imposed on Russia.
Saudi Arabia is the only producer country that has the capacity to pump more crude, while Venezuela can also draw more hydrocarbons because its exports have been limited both by international sanctions and by the disastrous technical and management situation of its oil monopoly
State, PDVSA, converted by Chavism into a kind of ATM to finance the regime. On the contrary, in the United States, which is the first world producer of oil, there will be six months to significantly increase production, according to sources of
The industry at the Erera Week Annual Conference, of S & P, which began yesterday in the city of Houston.
At the same time, the losers in that dynamics are the democratic forces in Saudi Arabia and in Venezuela.
In the first of those countries, the Biden Government is reverse into its distancing policy, and it is not even disposable a visit by the President to Riad next month. In Venezuela, the change has been even more radical: on Saturday, In an unexpected diplomatic movement, a mission of representatives of the Government of Joe Biden traveled to Caracas secretly to meet with the team of Nicolás Maduro.The Venezuelan President Juan Guidó, who recognizes the United States, was not warned of the trip, according to the Sunday The New York Times newspaper. That means that, in practice, Washington recognizes the ripe regime as the Government of Venezuela, thus breaking with three years in which the US, the EU, and 60 other countries have considered GUAIDO legitimate president of the country. The US opening seems Based on two pillars. On the one hand, the isolation of Vladimir Putin. The only countries that recognize the republics invented by Russia in the former Soviet republics (among them, two in Ukraine) are Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Nauru. That highlights the tremendous ties between those countries and Putin.aphornly, Nicaragua and Venezuela are the closest to Russia. That is because the Nicaraguan dictator Andrés Ortega has always been supported himself in Moscow, and mature personal security is in the hands of Russians, since he did not trust Cubans. On the contrary, Cuba does not need Russia because it already has its own created and established repressive and institutional apparatus, “according to a person with knowledge of the situation, which he adds that” Havana is interested in financial aid, and that is something. that Russia does not ask for “. The other element is the oil tanker. Venezuela’s crude is heavy, like Russian. That simplifies, in principle, replacing one another. 3% of crude oil that the United States imports from Russia, Although, when derived products are considered, the proportion reaches 8%. The Government of Biden does not want to suspend imports of Russian petroleum, but most of the congressmen – including pesos glued from his party, as the president of the Camera of Representatives, Nancy Pleosi is pressing for him to do so. And the cancellation of the petroleum purchases and Russia derivatives by the United States would not have a very large global impact on the market in terms of Volum on. But its psychological consequences would be enormous, since it would send a very clear sign that the United States considers that energy is also a weapon to force Putin to withdraw from Ukraine. The United States weekend initiated talks with its European partners for Reduce purchases of Russian oil. “At this time, there is a voluntary import reduction policy,” explains Philip Cornell, from the Consultant Economist Impact and the Think Tank Atlantic Council. But the main importer of Russian crude, Germany, does not want to hear about import cuts. The German Chancellor, the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, I declare yesterday Berlin can not break “from the morning the quotes the energy imports from Russia.
