Thanks to reader 'UL' for the headsup. Why am I completely unsurprised about seeing US-sponsored ongoing bullshit about Venezuela exposed by facts? The report below mentions OPEC, but being DJNW has decided to leave out the main culprit of the propaganda campaign. The Energy Inormation Administration (EIA), sponsored by the US State Dept, has for close on ten years refused to include Venezuela's bitumen-like heavy crude as oil and skewed its figures for Venezuelan exports as a result, which in turn has allowed the North to come forth with its VenezuelaWeAllGonnaDie tosh and nonsense....that never happens. Anyway, here's the note:
7:22p ET January 27, 2011 (Dow Jones) Few Discrepancies In Venezuela Government Oil Export Data - Barclays
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
CARACAS (Dow Jones)--Venezuela's actual oil exports, which have long been questioned by industry organizations, are likely to be close to the government's official data, Barclays Capital analysts said in a research note Thursday.
In a new study, the bank compared Venezuela's reported oil exports since 2005 with what other countries reported as imports from the South American nation and found only marginal discrepancies.
"We do not find a major deviation from the official export data published by Venezuelan institutions," the bank said, adding, "therefore, we maintain our view that Venezuela does not have a problem of cash constraints."
With the petroleum sector serving as the lifeblood of the Venezuelan economy, economists and bond investors pay close attention to oil prices as well as the country's production and export levels to gauge its ability to make debt payments.
The bank estimated Venezuela exported 2.4 million barrels a day in 2010, down from an estimated 2.5 million in the previous year. For 2010, Barclays estimated that about 2 million barrels a day were sold at market price while the remainder were sold "under preferential conditions."
That compares to the Venezuelan government figures, which put 2009 exports at nearly 2.7 million barrels per day and 2.44 million barrels per day during the first half of 2010. The country said it produced 3.1 million barrels per day in the first half of CONTINUES HERE