Setty and PDVSA's creaking pension scheme

Not content with exposing financial shenanigans amongst junior and not so junior quoted oil companies, Setty has now taken it on himself to go after the biggest, chunky oil company in the region, Venezuela's State-owned PDVSA and its wobbly-looking pension scheme. Go read this because it's dynamite stuff.

Blogs don't matter, Pacific Rubiales (PRE.to) edition

Here's a five chart of Pacific Rubiales (PRE.to) that shows the end of last week's action and the two days of this week.

And just so things are clear, this one shows PRE.to matched up against ^XOI, the Amex Oil Index, to show how the stock has done compared to the industry benchmark.

A 10% gap between the industry benchmark and PRE? Wowsers, so what's changed? Well, there was this superlative post about PRE.to by Setty that hit the wires on Sunday March 27th which pointed out the recent issues over at the company and especially how management has been playing the mushroom politics card...as well as making significant insider sales on info of bad production numbers that it held back from the world. And if you haven't worked it out already, Setty is a dude read by anyone who needs to keep in touch with the LatAm O&G scene .....due mainly to his brilliance.

The thing is, as Setty pointed out in his post last weekend it would have been much easier for the PRE.to IR department to have answered his mails and calls for replies to his queries and presented its side of the case that (knowing the fair-handed Setty as I do) would have made it into print to balance things up, but that never happened. We can only assume that the mighty and rich PRE.to Public Relations people were too busy lunching and couldn't be bothered to talk to a pissant little blogger. But hey never mind that, PRE.to IR department, you've only lost over $510m in market cap since Monday. What's half a billion between friends these days?

You can tell Setty is new to blogging.....

...because he naively believes that pro journalism is going to credit a blogger for hitting a scoop on LatAm business affairs. Forget it, dude. Even if you find the local equivalent of Watergate the shameless hacks in Mainstream Media would never sully themselves by admitting they got a market moving story from a blog. Believe me...been there, seen that, got the backfiles and timestamps.

Here's Setty this morning (excerpted, of course)

Nice to see Bloomberg & Reuters following me on the PDVSA arbitration story.

Now we’re all friends here (literally!) so I’m not going to get bitchy about this, but I need to note that when a small publication like this one scoops the big guys, it’s considered to be the polite, ethical thing to do to give a little link or mention. For future reference, the phrasing is something like “The change was first reported on the Web site Setty’s notebook.” But you already know that.

DYODD, dudettes and dudes. And read blogs to find out first.

Setty calls out the bizmedia on Venezuelan oil

This links to a great post and puts numerous newswires, media outlets and analysts to shame. Here's how Setty kicks it off, click through to read the rest:

Is there anyone out there who gets the numbers right on Venezuela oil shipments to the USA? Not as far as I can tell. Everybody — Reuters, Barclay’s, you name it — reports a U.S. import figure that is much lower than the reality. Here’s why, and how to avoid this common error. Note: If you are frightened of Microsoft Excel, skip this post and keep reporting the wrong number. Nobody cares except me. In fact if you do it my way you will piss off your boss, because it makes Venezuela look better than the EIA numbers. So really, just ignore this post. Truth will get you in trouble.

Continues here.

News roundup (we use three blades that shave you closer than two blades)

Why do we love Setty so much? This is why. Click through to hear about the cold snap we australs are going through right now and the power cuts all over the region too. Fave Settyline is this one, talking about the big cut in northern Peru over the weekend;

"Winning quote from that story is the electric utility saying they have a contingency plan, but they couldn’t implement it because there was no electricity".

Classic. Go read it all, like now.

Venezuela Analysis (aka V-Anal) reports on the Banco de Venezuela nationalization one year on. As the report notes, BdV is now the biggest bank in the country (it was 3rd when taken over) and has been surging in loan deals too. But as it was Chávez that told the world in a presser, it has to be lies, right? Remember folks, don't let the facts get in the way of etc etc.

Jakob at Maladjusted gets his wonk on and does a great job of walking us through the UN's newest methods to (attempt to) measure poverty. Lots of examples, charts, words and the necessary sneering at the correct points. A great post.

Peter Capusotto is back! Last night South America's best funnyguy (by a mile) hit the screen of Argentina again for his new series and, Argies doing good by the world, the first episode is already largely up on youtube. For those conversant in the ways of the language, the sketches linked here with characters Micky Vainilla, Violencia Rivas, Jesús de Laferrere and "Consumo" are unmissable. Knowledge of rock music culture and Argentina underground useful for full enjoyment potential.

UPDATE: Esp the Mick Vainilla one. Watched it 3 times already.

Read Setty today

A wonderful piece of writing is waiting for you right here on this link. Setty visits the scene of the recent Chilean tsunami and paints a word picture of depth and moment.

Really and unjokingly, a must read article.

Joyous News! Settyblog has gone public

Ladies and gentlemen of the LatAm-interested world, you are required by law to add Setty's Notebook to your list of links.

Setty lives in Venezuela and covers the country from a political/financial viewpoint better than anyone I know. He'll say when things are good, he'll say when things are bad. Neither overtly pro or anti Chávez (so govt and opposition stupidity is exposed with equal glee), damned smart when it comes to numbers and to cap it all off funny and highly entertaining to read, too.

Up to now Setty has run a invites-only blog, but he's finally taken the plunge and gone public. So here's the link to his brand new public access blog and go see for yourself why he's the bestest on Venezuela (and other places too).

Fanfare over. Mojitos served. The end.

Where the oil comes from (guest post)

My man setty over at his blog settyblog (friends only, sorry) wrote this post today. After asking nicely he let me re-post it here. So here it is. Enjoy.

Where The Oil Comes From

U.S. government and news preoccupation with Venezuela isn't just because the country is ostensibly leftist. It's got much more to do with Venezuela's role as the U.S.'s second-most important oil supplier.

The U.S. had net imports of oil, coal refined products and electricity from 62 countries in 2009. This diversity conceals the concentration of suppliers.

Data provided by the U.S. Department of Energy also mask the importance of imports from Venezuela. This page, updated monthly, ignores both U.S. exports and (because the statistical series started in the 1940s, before the Virgin Islands was a major U.S. import point), treats the U.S. Virgin Islands as a foreign country. Since Venezuela provides two thirds of the crude for the Hovensa refinery on St. Croix, that takes many Venezuela barrels out of the ranking.

This U.S. Commerce Department data is the first place I've found that adds up U.S. net exports and imports of oil tallied by country and by dollar value, rather than by barrels. It turns out that the biggest net suppliers to the U.S. in 2009 were:

Canada $54.1 billion (25% of total)
Venezuela $26.4 billion (12%)
Saudi Arabia $21.5 billion (10%)
Nigeria $18.7 billion (9%)
Mexico $17.5 billion (8%)
Russia $13.1 billion (6%)
Algeria $10.6 billion (5%)

That's 75% of the oil imports coming from seven countries.

To understand the importance of a diversity of suppliers to a consumer like the United States, I highly recommend this documentary. In particular the part around 8:48.