In what has become a full-blown ‘chess game’ between the US administration and the government of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, as Washington persists in its exertion of pressures in an effort to force the collapse of the ruling administration in Caracas, the Russian oil giant Rosneft PJSC has hastily sold its assets in Venezuela to the Russian government in order to evade US sanctions that continue to be imposed on external entities still doing business with the government in Caracas.
The ‘sale’ of the Rosneft resources to the Russian government marks yet another of the ongoing ‘cat and mouse’ between Caracas and Washington in which the beleaguered Venezuelan President continues to receive a generous measure of support from his Russian allies.
The US’ primary focus is on putting a complete brake on foreign companies that continue to operate in Venezuela’s huge but now considerably depleted oil sector as a precursor to forcing Maduro out of office, though some sections of international opinion are critical of what they say is America’s indifference to the fallout for the country as a whole with its ‘head to head’ with Maduro.
Making no secret of the significance of the recent sale of its inventory in Caracas to the Russian government, a Rosneft
official was quoted as saying that the move is designed to protect the interests of the company’s shareholders. Rosneft is reportedly selling its local production, service and trading assets to a state-owned Russian company.
Given the raft of sanctions slapped on foreign oil companies that have defied US pressures to drive them out of Venezuela and effectively force the closure of the country’s oil & gas sector, several of those companies have cut their losses and severed their ties with the Venezuelan state-run oil company, PDVSA. Earlier this year, Washington imposed sanctions on two of Rosneft’s units operating in Venezuela but stopped short of extending those sanctions to the parent company.
The confrontation between Washington and Caracas in which the US has unerringly targeted Venezuela’s oil sector is an extension of a wider geo-political battle between Washington and Moscow in which both capitals have turned to oil as their weapon of choice. That circumstance has had a knock-on effect for the oil industry and specifically for global oil prices.
