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Venezuela is in talks with oil consuming countries like India to find ways beyond the dollar to foot the bill for crude oil purchases.
“We are talking about commercial trade and commercial exchange, we are not talking about barter. How payment is made is for the buyer and seller to decide. It can be in currency, it can be through other transferable methods and channels,” Venezuela’s Minister of Petroleum, Manuel Quevedo, told reporters on the sidelines of Petrotech-2019.
Venezuela has plunged into a political and economic crisis after the US mounted sanctions and supported Venezuelan opposition leader, Juan Guaido’s bid for presidency. “The exchange of crude and products in general that we have been dealing with is a way of handling trade and that does not necessarily mean barter…Proper trade, fair trade, efficient trade which can benefit India and Venezuela,” Quevedo said.
The sanctions cut off Venezuelan firms from American banking channels, making it difficult for global players to pay for purchases. This has forced the Venezuelan government to seek alternative methods for crude oil buyers to foot the bill.
“There is definitely a world beyond the North American market, everywhere is a market…The world is not only the US and the world is not only the dollar. There are those who think that they are the owners of the world, but they are not,” he added.
“We exist. As a team we exist as countries with our own needs. There are Venezuela, India, China and Russia, there are many and we all can be one economy and that economy doesn’t necessarily have to be within the dollar. The US is a strong economy but it is not the only economy in the world,” he said.
Hitting out at the US for interfering in Venezuela, Quevedo said, “As a sovereign we are free to offer our oil to anyone who wishes to buy and certainly if our strategic partner, like India, wants to buy then we sell the oil to India. And how they pay is not going to depend on those who are out to destroy our oil industry.”
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