Venezuela
When I first visited Caracas in 1994, I was struck by how one could see that a once prosperous city had lapsed into decline. Goodness knows what it is like now. The levels of deprivation are unparalleled in countries of a similar standing. Meanwhile by some miracle Venezuela manages to continue producing some 2.4mmbbls/day of oil. The country is split – as witnessed by last weeks phoney-war; government loyalists queued to test the voting infrastructure – as a dry run for the real elections for the new Constituent Assembly on July 30th, whilst opposition supporters queued to vote in an unofficial referendum. This referendum provided a 98% rejection of the current adminsitration, with reportedly 7.2m votes cast. An unsurprising result given that only opposition supporters voted. Whilst this is a big number it is only about 30% of the eligable voters, so the country remains deeply divided.
Prior to this referendum, the news from Venezuela was largely burried in all the First-World fluff, but it is reported that over 100 people have been killed in protests this year – this is a tragedy in the making for (many) of the people of Venezuela. But at what point is this not geo-political risk for the oil price? Looks to me like the single biggest “wild-card” out there at the moment.
Continue reading “Random thoughts from the news”
