What Resource Curse? - By Charles Kenny | Foreign Policy

What Resource Curse?

Is it really true that underground riches lead to above-ground woes? No, not really.

BY CHARLES KENNY | DECEMBER 6, 2010

Bad news: Mozambique has just discovered between 6 trillion and 8 trillion cubic feet of gas sitting off its shoreline -- quite enough for commercial production. This on top of a recent coal-mining boom is destined to make the country a major natural resource exporter. Joining the East African country in recent misfortune is Papua New Guinea, scheduled to start exporting $30 billion worth of natural gas, and Afghanistan -- particularly blighted by the discovery of iron, copper, cobalt, gold, and lithium deposits with a combined value over $1 trillion. Oh, lackaday. Whatever chance they had of sustaining a stable, economically robust democracy is surely down the pit latrine now.

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How so? Enter the resource curse -- the idea that the more stuff dug out from on or under a country, the slower it will grow and the higher the risk it will descend into civil war. Versions of the curse have been around for some time. Back in the 1970s, economists worried about "Dutch disease." Countries that exported a lot of gas or oil would see their exchange rates go up as a result. This, in turn, could make their manufacturing exports uncompetitive. But the idea really picked up steam in the mid-1990s, when Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner, then both at Harvard University, found that countries that exported more agricultural products, minerals, and fuels saw slower economic growth.
Sachs and Warner highlighted Dutch disease and its knock-on effects as the likely cause. But other researchers looking at the same data argued that the link might be through empowering kleptocratic leaders with resource rents or the destabilizing political impact of easy money. In a matter of a few years, resource exports were charged with a host of ill effects -- not least, low education spending, unstable government, civil war, corruption, and poor governance.
The curse is the type of counterintuitive idea that makes for a great newspaper op-ed. Nonetheless, the curse is also the kind of counterintuitive idea where intuition may have been right to begin with. In 1997, the World Bank produced some measures of total natural resource wealth -- including agricultural land, mineral and oil resources, and protected areas. The richest countries in terms of resources per citizen were Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Norway. Their average income per head in 2008 was $24,430. Jordan and Malawi were at the bottom of the list. Jordan has a per capita income of $5,702; Malawi's is $744. Looking at mineral wealth alone, Venezuela and Norway were at the top, while Belgium, Benin, Ghana (before the recent oil discoveries), and Nepal were at the bottom. While Ghana's oil discovery suggests one problem with the rankings -- rich countries have been better explored for mineral deposits -- nonetheless, the list hardly suggests that resource scarcity is the secret to rapid growth.
Looking at recent growth across countries, Swiss economist Christa Brunnschweiler concludes that economies with greater resource wealth actually grew faster between 1970 and 2000 than resource-poor countries. She also finds no evidence that greater resource wealth is associated with weaker institutions, a finding repeated by Daron Acemoglu at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Together with her colleague Erwin Bulte, Brunnschweiler also looked at the link between natural resources and civil disorder. They found that countries with more natural resource wealth were less likely to descend into civil war in the first place. The same result held whether they were using a broad measure of resource wealth or focused only on minerals or oil. Elsewhere, Stephen Haber and Victor Menaldo of Stanford University and the University of Washington, respectively, studied the relationship between oil revenues and democracy over time across countries. They found that democracies were actually made more resilient by growing oil revenues -- while they couldn't find an impact one way or another when it came to autocracies. Sure, there are cases where oil revenues and autocracy increased together. It is just that there are at least as many cases where that didn't happen -- and more cases where democracy strengthened as revenues went up.
How to reconcile these results with all the papers and articles that find a curse? Earlier studies looked at the importance of natural resource exports at a particular moment in time. There, the relationship holds -- high dependence on resource exports is associated with lower growth and risk of civil war. But that's a strange way to measure "the curse of resources." According to the usual story, the curse involves the misfortune of sitting atop an oil field or diamond-bearing rocks. It's a story of abundance -- as examined by Bulte and Brunnschweiler -- not dependence.
And dependence has got to do with a lot of other things besides mineral reserves. It is true that many countries that rely heavily on natural resource exports are poor and unstable. That's because poor and unstable countries are rarely globally competitive in banking or computer design (it's hard to develop a flourishing microchip industry as the bullets fly). Natural resources are pretty much the only thing such countries have a comparative advantage in trading. Again, countries don't get rich if all they do is produce crops and dig stuff out of the ground. Getting rich takes a vibrant services sector and at least some manufacturing. So countries where digging stuff out of the ground is an especially large part of what goes on in the economy are in trouble. But they are in trouble because they've failed so miserably to create an environment where services and manufacturing can flourish -- not because they happen to have a diamond deposit.
Do kleptocratic regimes exploit natural resources to pad their bank accounts, buy off opponents, and purchase weapons to cow holdouts? Of course they do. Exploiting, padding, bribing, and bullying are what kleptocrats do best. But they are equal-opportunity exploiters. If natural resource rents aren't available, they'll find something else -- and maybe do something worse to get it. For every Gen. Sani Abacha skimming billions off Nigeria's oil wealth, there is a Field Marshal Idi Amin massacring Ugandans by the thousands without the aid or incentive of significant mineral resources.
Happily for those countries stuck atop piles of diamonds or lakes of oil, then, it turns out the resource curse must have been enchanted by a pretty feeble witch. Once you look at the evidence more carefully, the usual argument is turned on its head. Countries that rely on natural resources for a large part of their output are indeed cursed -- by poor quality government and an institutional environment that stifles the growth of manufacturing and services. That's the good news for Afghanistan, Mozambique, and Papua New Guinea: They won't necessarily get any poorer or more unstable thanks to their massive mineral reserves. But bad news follows, too: Given the comparatively weak state of their current institutions, the countries are unlikely to use the money generated to become the next Norway, either.
That's why the most heralded talisman against the resource curse -- improving institutions through greater transparency and oversight -- makes sense regardless. In fact, because so much of the revenues from extractive industries flow through governments, improved oversight might be a particular help after a mineral find. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, for example, publishes audited statements regarding payments from industry to government in royalties and taxes. Another approach, championed by Todd Moss at the Center for Global Development, is to pass on oil revenues directly to citizens -- a model adopted in Alaska. These are good ideas, and it is great news that Mozambique and Afghanistan have signed up to the Transparency Initiative.
But at heart, they are good ideas because all governments should be more transparent and increase the flow of resources to communities, no matter what's under their land. Blaming oil wealth for poverty, though, is like blaming treasure for the existence of pirates.

GIANLUIGI GUERCIA/AFP/Getty Images

Charles Kenny is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and a Schwartz fellow at the New America Foundation.

What Resource Curse? - By Charles Kenny | Foreign Policy

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In a Computer Worm, a Possible Biblical Clue

September 29, 2010

By JOHN MARKOFF and DAVID E. SANGER

Deep inside the computer worm that some specialists suspect is aimed at slowing Iran’s race for a nuclear weapon lies what could be a fleeting reference to the Book of Esther, the Old Testament tale in which the Jews pre-empt a Persian plot to destroy them.
That use of the word “Myrtus” — which can be read as an allusion to Esther — to name a file inside the code is one of several murky clues that have emerged as computer experts try to trace the origin and purpose of the rogue Stuxnet program, which seeks out a specific kind of command module for industrial equipment.
Not surprisingly, the Israelis are not saying whether Stuxnet has any connection to the secretive cyberwar unit it has built inside Israel’s intelligence service. Nor is the Obama administration, which while talking about cyberdefenses has also rapidly ramped up a broad covert program, inherited from the Bush administration, to undermine Iran’s nuclear program. In interviews in several countries, experts in both cyberwar and nuclear enrichment technology say the Stuxnet mystery may never be solved.
There are many competing explanations for myrtus, which could simply signify myrtle, a plant important to many cultures in the region. But some security experts see the reference as a signature allusion to Esther, a clear warning in a mounting technological and psychological battle as Israel and its allies try to breach Tehran’s most heavily guarded project. Others doubt the Israelis were involved and say the word could have been inserted as deliberate misinformation, to implicate Israel.
“The Iranians are already paranoid about the fact that some of their scientists have defected and several of their secret nuclear sites have been revealed,” one former intelligence official who still works on Iran issues said recently. “Whatever the origin and purpose of Stuxnet, it ramps up the psychological pressure.”
So a calling card in the code could be part of a mind game, or sloppiness or whimsy from the coders.
The malicious code has appeared in many countries, notably China, India, Indonesia and Iran. But there are tantalizing hints that Iran’s nuclear program was the primary target. Officials in both the United States and Israel have made no secret of the fact that undermining the computer systems that control Iran’s huge enrichment plant at Natanz is a high priority. (The Iranians know it, too: They have never let international inspectors into the control room of the plant, the inspectors report, presumably to keep secret what kind of equipment they are using.)
The fact that Stuxnet appears designed to attack a certain type of Siemens industrial control computer, used widely to manage oil pipelines, electrical power grids and many kinds of nuclear plants, may be telling. Just last year officials in Dubai seized a large shipment of those controllers — known as the Simatic S-7 — after Western intelligence agencies warned that the shipment was bound for Iran and would likely be used in its nuclear program.
“What we were told by many sources,” said Olli Heinonen, who retired last month as the head of inspections at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, “was that the Iranian nuclear program was acquiring this kind of equipment.”
Also, starting in the summer of 2009, the Iranians began having tremendous difficulty running their centrifuges, the tall, silvery machines that spin at supersonic speed to enrich uranium — and which can explode spectacularly if they become unstable. In New York last week, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, shrugged off suggestions that the country was having trouble keeping its enrichment plants going.
Yet something — perhaps the worm or some other form of sabotage, bad parts or a dearth of skilled technicians — is indeed slowing Iran’s advance.
The reports on Iran show a fairly steady drop in the number of centrifuges used to enrich uranium at the main Natanz plant. After reaching a peak of 4,920 machines in May 2009, the numbers declined to 3,772 centrifuges this past August, the most recent reporting period. That is a decline of 23 percent. (At the same time, production of low-enriched uranium has remained fairly constant, indicating the Iranians have learned how to make better use of fewer working machines.)
Computer experts say the first versions of the worm appeared as early as 2009 and that the sophisticated version contained an internal time stamp from January of this year.
These events add up to a mass of suspicions, not proof. Moreover, the difficulty experts have had in figuring out the origin of Stuxnet points to both the appeal and the danger of computer attacks in a new age of cyberwar.
For intelligence agencies they are an almost irresistible weapon, free of fingerprints. Israel has poured huge resources into Unit 8200, its secretive cyberwar operation, and the United States has built its capacity inside the National Security Agency and inside the military, which just opened a Cyber Command.
But the near impossibility of figuring out where they came from makes deterrence a huge problem — and explains why many have warned against the use of cyberweapons. No country, President Obama was warned even before he took office, is more vulnerable to cyberattack than the United States.
For now, it is hard to determine if the worm has infected centrifuge controllers at Natanz. While the S-7 industrial controller is used widely in Iran, and many other countries, even Siemens says it does not know where it is being used. Alexander Machowetz, a spokesman in Germany for Siemens, said the company did no business with Iran’s nuclear program. “It could be that there is equipment,” he said in a telephone interview. “But we never delivered it to Natanz.”
But Siemens industrial controllers are unregulated commodities that are sold and resold all over the world — the controllers intercepted in Dubai traveled through China, according to officials familiar with the seizure.
Ralph Langner, a German computer security consultant who was the first independent expert to assert that the malware had been “weaponized” and designed to attack the Iranian centrifuge array, argues that the Stuxnet worm could have been brought into the Iranian nuclear complex by Russian contractors.
“It would be an absolute no-brainer to leave an infected USB stick near one of these guys,” he said, “and there would be more than a 50 percent chance of having him pick it up and infect his computer.”
There are many reasons to suspect Israel’s involvement in Stuxnet. Intelligence is the single largest section of its military and the unit devoted to signal, electronic and computer network intelligence, known as Unit 8200, is the largest group within intelligence.
Yossi Melman, who covers intelligence for the newspaper Haaretz and is at work on a book about Israeli intelligence over the past decade, said in a telephone interview that he suspected that Israel was involved.
He noted that Meir Dagan, head of Mossad, had his term extended last year partly because he was said to be involved in important projects. He added that in the past year Israeli estimates of when Iran will have a nuclear weapon had been extended to 2014.
“They seem to know something, that they have more time than originally thought,” he said.
Then there is the allusion to myrtus — which may be telling, or may be a red herring.
Several of the teams of computer security researchers who have been dissecting the software found a text string that suggests that the attackers named their project Myrtus. The guava fruit is part of the Myrtus family, and one of the code modules is identified as Guava.
It was Mr. Langner who first noted that Myrtus is an allusion to the Hebrew word for Esther. The Book of Esther tells the story of a Persian plot against the Jews, who attacked their enemies pre-emptively.
“If you read the Bible you can make a guess,” said Mr. Langner, in a telephone interview from Germany on Wednesday.
Carol Newsom, an Old Testament scholar at Emory University, confirmed the linguistic connection between the plant family and the Old Testament figure, noting that Queen Esther’s original name in Hebrew was Hadassah, which is similar to the Hebrew word for myrtle. Perhaps, she said, “someone was making a learned cross-linguistic wordplay.”
But other Israeli experts said they doubted Israel’s involvement. Shai Blitzblau, the technical director and head of the computer warfare laboratory at Maglan, an Israeli company specializing in information security, said he was “convinced that Israel had nothing to do with Stuxnet.”
“We did a complete simulation of it and we sliced the code to its deepest level,” he said. “We have studied its protocols and functionality. Our two main suspects for this are high-level industrial espionage against Siemens and a kind of academic experiment.”
Mr. Blitzblau noted that the worm hit India, Indonesia and Russia before it hit Iran, though the worm has been found disproportionately in Iranian computers. He also noted that the Stuxnet worm has no code that reports back the results of the infection it creates. Presumably, a good intelligence agency would like to trace its work.

Ethan Bronner contributed reporting from Israel, and William J. Broad from New York.

 In a Computer Worm, a Possible Biblical Clue - NYTimes.com

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OPEC Reaching Comfortable Middle Age, Turns 50 Tomorrow With Oil at $75

By Grant Smith - Sep 13, 2010 1:01 AM GMT+0200 Sun Sep 12 23:01:59 GMT 2010

A ceremony for the new OPEC headquarters in Austria on March 17, 2010. Photographer: Vladimir Weiss/Bloomberg

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries turns 50 years old tomorrow, having survived a tumultuous history of wars, embargoes and in-fighting. The world’s oldest and largest energy producer group is now enjoying prices close to the $75 a barrel level that its largest member Saudi Arabia considers “ideal.”
OPEC’s Timeline:
Sept. 14, 1960: The organization was born in Baghdad. The five founding members -- Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela -- created the group during a five-day meeting in the Iraqi capital, dedicated to “the coordination and unification of the petroleum policies of Member Countries and the determination of the best means of safeguarding their interests.”
Sept. 1, 1965: The group moved its headquarters from Geneva to Vienna, where its secretariat is now based. Between 1961 and 1971 the following six countries join: Qatar, Indonesia, Libya, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria and Nigeria.
October, 1973: The six-month Arab oil embargo pitted OPEC’s Arab members against the U.S. and Israel in a politically-motivated suspension of exports that pushed prices above $12 a barrel. The Paris-based International Energy Agency was created in 1974 by consumer nations, in response to the oil price shock. Ecuador and Gabon join OPEC in 1973 and 1975, respectively, only to leave the group later.
Dec. 20, 1975: Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, known as Carlos the Jackal, took more than 60 hostages during a raid on OPEC’s Vienna headquarters to protest against treatment of Palestinians by Israel.
October, 1978: Protests and strikes in OPEC member Iran against ruling Shah Reza Pahlavi, deposed the following year in a revolution, cut the country’s oil production within three months to a 27-year low.
Sept. 23, 1980: Iraq invaded Iran in the first war between OPEC members. During the eight-year conflict, with its attacks on oil-tankers in the Persian Gulf, group production plunged to a 20-year low.
October, 1981: OPEC members agreed to maintain oil prices within a range of $32 to $38 a barrel.
August, 1985: Saudi Arabia abandoned the system of “posting” oil prices to one in favor of letting the retail value of refined products such as gasoline determine the cost of crude.
1986: OPEC members switched to a new pricing system in which futures contracts traded on exchanges in New York and London effectively determined the cost of oil shipments.
Aug. 2, 1990: Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait marked the second war among OPEC members. Repelled the following year by a U.S.-led coalition, withdrawing Iraqi troops set fire to Kuwait’s oil wells.
Nov. 29, 1997: At a meeting in Jakarta, OPEC raised production quotas for the first time in four years as the Asian financial crisis unfolds, sending prices as low as $10 the following December. Analysts often refer to the event as “the Ghost of Jakarta.”
June 24, 1998: OPEC was assisted by non-members including Mexico, Russia and Norway in cutting production as demand collapsed, helping revive prices. The coordinated action followed initial talks between Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Mexico.
March 19, 2003: Aircraft and missile attacks on Iraq begin, followed by a U.S. and U.K. troop invasion that subsequently topples Saddam Hussein’s government in Baghdad.
Jan. 1, 2007: Angola joined OPEC, its first new member since the 1970s. In November, Ecuador re-joined the organization following a 15-year absence.
Sept. 10, 2008: Indonesia exited the oil group after becoming a net importer, leaving the total number of members at 12.
Dec. 18, 2008: OPEC announced the largest production cut in its history as the financial crisis sent prices plunging from a record $147.27 a barrel in July, 2008, to near $30 by the year- end. Oil prices then climb 78 percent during 2009.
Sept. 14, 2010: In happy middle age, OPEC turns 50, with oil prices near $75 a barrel and above $70 a barrel for all but two weeks of this year.
To contact the reporter on this story: Grant Smith in London at gsmith52@bloomberg.net

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Goldman Backs Oil, Copper, Gold, Maintains `Overweight' Commodities Call - Bloomberg

Goldman Backs Oil, Copper, Gold, Maintains `Overweight' Commodities Call

By Glenys Sim - Aug 16, 2010

Commodities demand from emerging markets and limited growth in supplies will help to support prices toward the end of the year, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which backed oil, gold, copper, zinc and platinum.
The bank reiterated an “overweight” recommendation on commodities, analysts led by Allison Nathan and Jeffrey Currie wrote in a report. Goldman pared its 12-month forecast for the S&P GSCI Enhanced Total Returns Index to a 19 percent gain from 21.6 after recent gains in agricultural commodities and metals.
Commodities last week had the worst weekly performance in six after the Federal Reserve said the recovery is weakening and European industrial output fell, stoking concern that there may be a double-dip recession. Reports also showed China’s retail sales and new lending grew in July at a slower pace than June.
“We are not overly optimistic about commodities prices in the second half,” Ni Xiaolei, a trader at Donghai Futures Co., said from Jiangsu today. “‘We saw a very sharp ascent in commodity prices last month, which will be hard to sustain as global macroeconomic data emerges weaker than expected.’’
Goldman’s commodity ‘‘overweight’’ call was maintained even as the bank has been paring forecasts for U.S. and Japanese economic growth for next year. Ed McKelvey, Goldman’s senior U.S. economist in New York, has also said that the chance the U.S. may tumble back into recession is as high as 30 percent.
Gold, Crude
Gold, which surged to a record $1,265.30 an ounce in June amid concern sovereign-debt levels in Europe may be excessive, traded at $1,29.60 at 2:11 p.m. in Singapore, 11 percent higher this year. Goldman forecast a rise to $1,260 in three months and to $1,300 in six. New York crude futures were at $75.86 a barrel, 4.4 percent lower over 2010. Goldman’s report put them at $92 a barrel in three months.
‘‘The current softness in economic data, combined with increasingly mixed signals from the underlying commodity markets, is likely to continue to generate choppy commodity-price action in the near term,” the Goldman analysts wrote in the Aug. 13 report. Still, “high and rising emerging-market demand levels against limited supply growth in key commodities are likely to increasingly tighten balances,” they wrote.
Japan’s economy expanded at an annualized 0.4 percent in the three months to June 30, the Cabinet Office said today. That’s the slowest pace in three quarters. U.S. industrial production figures are due for release tomorrow, the same day as data on investor confidence in Germany.
Chinese Demand
Commodity prices may advance into the end of the year on evidence of increased oil demand in China, a decline in crude stockpiles in Europe and the U.S., and further falls in metals inventories, the report said.
“We expect upside to be greatest for crude oil, copper, zinc, platinum and gold,” it said. “Improved data will likely be required to sustain rising prices.”
Goldman Sachs last week backed gold to resume a rally and climb to a record $1,300 an ounce within six months on renewed investor interest. The precious metal, which has risen for nine years to last year, may also climb in 2011, the report said.
A ban on wheat exports by Russia helped to drive futures to $8.68 a bushel earlier this month, the highest price in almost two years. The country is battling reduced grains production amid the worst drought in at least 50 years.
‘Sharp Gains’
“Commodity returns rose over the past month led by sharp gains in the agricultural complex owing to weather-related supply shocks in wheat,” according to the Goldman report.
Zinc, trading today at $2,080 a metric ton, has fallen 19 percent this year, making it the worst performer on the London Metal Exchange. Goldman’s analysts forecast that the metal may climb to $2,121 a ton in six months, according to the report.
Copper rose 1.3 percent to $7,246.50 a metric ton, paring this year’s loss to 1.7 percent, while platinum gained 0.8 percent to $1,535.75 an ounce, 5 percent stronger this year. Goldman forecast copper at $7,925 a ton in six months.
Japan will grow 1.4 percent in 2011, compared with an earlier forecast of 1.7 percent, Goldman’s Tokyo-based senior economist Chiwoong Lee said in a report dated Aug. 7. The week before that Goldman lowered its projection for U.S. growth for the same year to 1.9 percent from 2.5 percent.
To contact the reporter on this story: Glenys Sim in Singapore at Gsim4@bloomberg.net

Goldman Backs Oil, Copper, Gold, Maintains `Overweight' Commodities Call - Bloomberg

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Top five bottlenecks in the Gulf oil spill response - CSMonitor.com

Top five bottlenecks in the Gulf oil spill response

Local officials complain about lack of urgency in the federal Gulf oil spill response. Here are five reasons that the government seems to be dragging its heels.

Workers skim a large patch of weathered oil by hand near the boat ramp at Ken Combs Pier in Gulfport, Miss. The Gulf oil spill became the largest ever in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, based on the highest of the federal government's estimates.
(Amanda McCoy/The Sun Herald/AP)

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By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer
posted July 1, 2010 at 7:46 pm EDT

Atlanta —
With each oily wave hitting marshes and beaches from the Gulf oil spill, desperation grows along the already stained Gulf Coast.
In part, the magnitude of the spill has simply overwhelmed the ability of the White House and BP to completely contain it. But it is clear that bureaucratic red tape – echoing the post-Katrina federal response five years ago – has bogged down clean-up efforts as a host of agencies – OSHA, EPA, Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers and others – weigh in on most decisions.
Meanwhile, as November elections approach, the oil spill has a political dimension as both parties begin to use the massive oil slick from the Deepwater Horizon accident to bolster their prospects. Democrats will point out Republican ties to Big Oil, and Republicans will chide what they'll call a lackadaiscal response by the White House.
IN PICTURES: The Gulf oil spill's impact on nature
If the Macondo well is capped, oil cleanup is ramped up, and no hurricanes hit the slick, the oil spill crisis is likely to eventually abate. But the impression many Gulf Coast residents have so far is of a Keystone Kops response, where mundane regulations and misplaced priorities stand in the way of protecting local livelihoods and the Gulf's natural environment.
"The cleanup effort is drowning in the proverbial sea of red tape," writes Gulf Coast native Winston Groom, the author of "Forrest Gump," in the Weekly Standard.
Here are the top five bottlenecks impeding the Gulf oil spill cleanup so far:
Enough life vests? The Coast Guard has not eased any of its safety regulations and will likely continue to refuse to do so. A Louisiana effort involving 16 oil-sucking barges was shut down for nearly a day on June 18 by the Coast Guard, which wanted to make sure there were enough life vests and fire extinguishers on board.
"The Coast Guard is not going to compromise safety ... that's our No. 1 priority," Coast Guard spokesman Robert Brassel told The Daily Caller. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal called it "frustrating."
The Jones Act. It's unclear to what extent the Jones Act, a 1920 protectionist law that mandates only US vessels and crews operate within the US three-mile maritime border, has really affected the ability to move foreign oil skimmers into the spill theater.
At issue in the law is both availability and proximity of US based skimming vessels. Several nations have said their offers of help have been rebuffed at least in part by US officials citing the Jones Act. This week, Obama sent out a call for more nations to join the clean-up response, but the President has not publicly addressed the legal and practical issues around US law and the foreign fleets ready to help.
"We want all the skimming vessels in the world deployed," Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser tells the Times-Picayune newspaper in New Orleans.
(Factcheck.org says, "In reality, the Jones Act has yet to be an issue in the response efforts.... So far, offers from six foreign countries or entities have been accepted and only one offer has been rejected. Fifteen foreign-flag vessels are working on the cleanup, and none required a waiver.")
EPA says no, then yes. Three days after the accident, the Dutch government offered advanced skimming equipment capable of sucking up oiled water, separating out most of the oil, and returning the cleaner water to the Gulf. But citing discharge regulations that demand that 99.9985 percent of the returned water is oil-free, the EPA initially turned down the offer. A month into the crisis, the EPA backed off those regulations, and the Dutch equipment was airlifted to the Gulf.
'Ever hear of Radio Shack?' In a recent fly-over of a spill area near Perdido Bay, BP official Doug Suttles expressed amazement that spotter plane pilots couldn't communicate directly with skimming boats on the surface to direct them to oil patches. "We need to get the skimmers to the oil," Suttles said. Local officials in Escambia County, Fla., have been asking for weeks for plane-to-ship communications, to little avail.
"Haven't they ever heard of Radio Shack?" writes Mr. Groom.
Who's in charge here? President Obama has said "the buck stops" with him. But the actual incident response command structure is a Gordian Knot for local officials requesting help and resources. Frustrated by red tape, some officials have been warned they'll be arrested if they take matters into their own hands. The lack of a clear command structure has hampered the ability to move resources like booms and skimmers quickly, especially in a still-growing spill that's at the whim of the Gulf's ever-changing tides, currents and winds.
While most of the criticism has been heaped on federal agencies and the Obama administration, questions are being raised about the extent to which the four Gulf state governors (all Republicans) are responding too – specifically, on deployment of National Guard troops under their command.
In a recent investigative report, CBS News found that Louisiana's Gov. Jindal had deployed just 1,053 of the 6,000 troops available to him. "Alabama has deployed 432 troops of 3,000 available," according to CBS. "Even fewer have been deployed in Florida - 97 troops out of 2,500 - and Mississippi - 58 troops out of 6,000."
Jindal told CBS that the White House had instructed state officials that "Coast Guard and BP had to authorize individual tasks" for National Guard units.
But Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander in charge of the government's response to the spill, disputed that. "There is nothing standing in the governor's way from utilizing more National Guard troops," Allen told CBS.
"Whether it's simple confusion or the infusion of politics into the spill, the fact remains thousands of helping hands remain waiting to be used," concluded CBS.
IN PICTURES: The Gulf oil spill's impact on nature
Related:
Gulf oil spill: The story so far
Jones Act: Maritime politics strain Gulf oil spill cleanup
After Gulf swimmers report illness, questions about opening a beach

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Top five bottlenecks in the Gulf oil spill response - CSMonitor.com

A lake of leaks reflects problems that stretch to the Orinoco

A lake of leaks reflects problems that stretch to the Orinoco

As the world watched BP battle with the devastating effects of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, another problem with leaking crude nearby has managed to escape much attention.

Venezuela’s state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), has been trying to play down a chronic problem of leakages from thousands of miles of pipelines that criss-cross Lake Maracaibo, a large brackish lake connected to the Caribbean.

Critics argue that the extensive oil slicks that have appeared on the lake in recent months are a direct result of PDVSA’s negligence since the expropriation last year of 76 oil service companies that worked on the lake. Mismanagement, a problem that has tainted the economic performance of President Hugo Chávez’s government as a whole, has had a disastrous impact on Venezuela’s oil output over the last few years and is likely to hobble production for years to come.

The US Energy Information Administration estimates that Venezuela’s crude oil production averaged 2.2m barrels a day in 2009, about 190,000 b/d lower than in 2008 and down from 3.2m b/d in 1997, before Mr Chávez came to power.

PDVSA, which disputes those numbers, has made a concerted drive to attract foreign investment into the oil-rich Orinoco Belt in order to boost production. In February it signed contracts with foreign oil companies for projects that could add 2.1m b/d to output and bring some $80bn (£51bn, €61bn) in investment from Chinese and Russian companies as well as majors such as Italy’s ENI, Chevron of the US and Spain’s Repsol.

Although this represented a vote of confidence in Venezuela just three years after a wave of nationalisations in the Orinoco, experts estimate that it could take at least three or four years for sagging output to recover. Efficient co-ordination of the projects, technical requirements and capital commitments are all barriers.

One of the pitfalls is whether PDVSA, which is keeping a 60 per cent stake in the projects, allows its minority partners a fair degree of operational control. Given its own patchy management record, experts argue that PDVSA must allow partners to become more integral players in its joint ventures. PDVSA’s partners are not involved in the sale of their output, for which PDVSA instead compensates them at the end of each year. Companies privately complain that PDVSA is not paying them enough to cover running costs and reinvest in expanding production.

With oil revenues providing about half of government expenditure, Mr Chávez may still face several lean years ahead.

FT.com

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Did BP Keep Drilling Even Though It Had Lost Control of the Oil Well Much Earlier?

The evidence keeps mounting against BP in the Macondo well explosion. The
post below is long but thorough!

Compiled by Washington's Blog <http://www.washingtonsblog.com/> from the NY
Times, Bloomberg, LA Times, and the Times of London.

The New York Times noted
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/us/22transocean.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
> yesterday:
Even though it was more than a month before the explosion, the [Deepwater
Horizon] rig's safety audit was conducted against the backdrop of what seems
to have been a losing battle to control the well.
On the March visit, Lloyd's investigators reported "a high degree of focus
and activity relating to well control issues," adding that "specialists were
aboard the rig to conduct subsea explosions to help alleviate these well
control issues."
As I pointed out
<http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/06/did-bp-oil-well-blow-out-in-february
.html> last month:
The Deepwater Horizon blew up on April 20th, and sank a couple of days
later. BP has been criticized for failing to report on the seriousness of
the blow out for several weeks.
However, as a whistleblower previously told
<http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/16/60minutes/main6490197.shtml> 60
Minutes, there was an accident at the rig a month or more prior to the April
20th explosion:
[Mike Williams, the chief electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon,
and one of the last workers to leave the doomed rig] ... says going faster
caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools and that
drilling fluid called "mud."
"We actually got stuck. And we got stuck so bad we had to send tools down
into the drill pipe and sever the pipe," Williams explained.
That well was abandoned and Deepwater Horizon had to drill a new route to
the oil. It cost BP more than two weeks and millions of dollars.
As Bloomberg reports
<http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-17/bp-struggled-with-cracks-in-gu
lf-well-as-early-as-february-documents-show.html> today, problems at the
well actually started in February:
BP Plc was struggling to seal cracks in its Macondo well as far back as
February, more than two months before an explosion killed 11 and spewed oil
into the Gulf of Mexico.
It took 10 days to plug the first cracks, according to reports BP filed with
the Minerals Management Service that were later delivered to congressional
investigators. Cracks in the surrounding rock continued to complicate the
drilling operation during the ensuing weeks. Left unsealed, they can allow
explosive natural gas to rush up the shaft.
"Once they realized they had oil down there, all the decisions they made
were designed to get that oil at the lowest cost," said Peter Galvin of the
Center for Biological Diversity, which has been working with congressional
investigators probing the disaster. "It's been a doomed voyage from the
beginning."
***
On Feb. 13, BP told the minerals service it was trying to seal cracks in the
well about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast, drilling
documents obtained by Bloomberg show. Investigators are still trying to
determine whether the fissures played a role in the disaster.
***
The company attempted a "cement squeeze," which involves pumping cement to
seal the fissures, according to a well activity report. Over the following
week the company made repeated attempts to plug cracks that were draining
expensive drilling fluid, known as "mud," into the surrounding rocks.
BP used three different substances to plug the holes before succeeding, the
documents show.
"Most of the time you do a squeeze and then let it dry and you're done,"
said John Wang, an assistant professor of petroleum and natural gas
engineering at Penn State in University Park, Pennsylvania. "It dries within
a few hours."
Repeated squeeze attempts are unusual and may indicate rig workers are using
the wrong kind of cement, Wang said.
In other words, the well started losing integrity in February, and may have
never been permanently stabilized. If cracks in the well were never properly
sealed, then the well may have been unstable starting in February and
continuing until the April 20 explosion. (There is substantial evidence
<http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/06/evidence-points-to-destruction-benea
th.html> that there are cracks in the well now.)
Bloomberg continues:
In early March, BP told the minerals agency the company was having trouble
maintaining control of surging natural gas, according to e-mails released
May 30 by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating
the spill.
***
While gas surges are common in oil drilling, companies have abandoned wells
if they determine the risk is too high.
***
On March 10, BP executive Scherie Douglas e-mailed Frank Patton, the mineral
service's drilling engineer for the New Orleans district, telling him: "We'
re in the midst of a well control situation."
The incident was a "showstopper," said Robert Bea, an engineering professor
at the University of California, Berkeley, who has consulted with the
Interior Department on offshore drilling safety. "They damn near blew up the
rig."
And the wives of oil rig workers killed in the blast testified
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/audio/18570/gulf_oil_spill_deepwater_horiz
on_rig.html?cat=3> that their husbands reported that the rig had problems
controlling well pressure weeks before explosion.
In other words, not only is it possible that the well casing was somewhat
unstable for months before the blow out, but BP may have ignored standard
drilling practices by failing to abandon the well when the natural gas began
surging too violently.
Sure, the rig didn't actually catch fire and sink until April, but cracks in
the well and dangerous natural gas surges may mean that BP never fully had
control of the well.
I'm not the only one asking such questions. It is worth re-reading the
following passage from the Bloomberg article quoted above:
On Feb. 13, BP told the minerals service it was trying to seal cracks in the
well ... drilling documents obtained by Bloomberg show. Investigators are
still trying to determine whether the fissures played a role in the
disaster.
Damaged Blowout Preventer
Whether or not BP had lost control of the well earlier, it was confirmed
yesterday that BP had damaged its key piece of safety equipment - the
blowout preventer - earlier, yet kept drilling.
The Los Angeles Times reported
<http://www.localwireless.com/wap/news/text.jsp?sid=294&nid=16652134&cid=166
77&ith=4&title=Top+Stories%22> Monday:
BP officials knew about a problem on a crucial well safety device at least
three months before the catastrophic April 20 explosion in the Gulf of
Mexico but failed to repair it, according to testimony Tuesday from the
company's well manager.
Ronald Sepulvado testified that he was aware of a leak on a control pod atop
the well's blowout preventer and notified his supervisor in Houston about
the problem, which Sepulvado didn't consider crucial. The 450-ton hydraulic
device, designed to prevent gas or oil from blasting out of the drill hole,
failed during the disaster, which killed 11 men on the Deepwater Horizon rig
and set off the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
Investigators said BP did not disclose the matter to the appropriate federal
agency and failed to suspend drilling operations until the problem was
resolved, as required by law.
The New York Times adds
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/us/22transocean.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
> the following details:
Federal investigators said Tuesday at a panel that continuing to drill
despite problems related to the blowout preventer might have been a
violation of federal regulations that require a work stoppage if the
equipment is found not to work properly.
While the equipment report says the device's control panels were in fair
condition, it also cites a range of problems, including a leaking door seal,
a diaphragm on the purge air pump needing replacement and several
error-response messages.
The device's annulars, which are large valves used to control wellbore
fluids, also encountered "extraordinary difficulties" surrounding their
maintenance, the report said.
And as I pointed out
<http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/05/despite-knowing-it-had-damaged-blowo
ut.html> in May:
Several weeks before the Gulf oil explosion, a key piece of safety equipment
- the blowout preventer - was damaged.
As the Times of London reports
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7128842.
ece> :
[Mike Williams, the chief electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon,
and one of the last workers to leave the doomed rig] claimed that the
blowout preventer was then damaged when a crewman accidentally moved a
joystick, applying hundreds of thousands of pounds of force. Pieces of
rubber were found in the drilling fluid, which he said implied damage to a
crucial seal. But a supervisor declared the find to be "not a big deal", Mr
Williams alleged.
UC Berkeley engineering professor Bob Bea told 60 Minutes that a damaged
blowout preventer not only may lead to a catastrophic accident like the Gulf
oil spill, but leads to inaccurate pressure readings, so that the well
operator doesn't know the real situation, and cannot keep the rig safe.
There are many other examples of criminal negligence by BP, Halliburton and
Transocean as well. See
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/20/AR201007200
2038.html> this,
<http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/05/bp-could-have-easily-contained-gulf-
oil.html> this,
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/19/business/19nocera.html?ref=business>
this,
<http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/news/bp-executives-could-face-15-y
ears-jail/story-e6frg90f-1225879591963> this,
<http://www.associatedcontent.com/audio/18570/gulf_oil_spill_deepwater_horiz
on_rig.html?cat=3> this,
<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a9ElwiTMH4Tg> this,
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/20/bp-smoking-gun-oil-giant_n_583590.
html> this,
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7136969.ece> this,
<http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/25/report-bp-had-3-indications-of-trouble
-in-hour-before-blast/> this,
<http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64Q0SG20100527> this,
<http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/rigs-fire-i-told-you-was-gonna-h
appen> this,
<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=awDwwghB5ZXg&?huffbloom
berg> this, <http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/49604> this,
<http://oilprice.com/Environment/Oil-Spills/9-Important-Points-about-the-BP-
Blowout-%E2%80%93-Part-1.html> this,
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704717004575268302434395796.h
tml?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_news> this,
<http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/26/oil.spill.investigation/index.html?hpt=T1>
this,
<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/26/94884/bp-could-be-held-criminally-lia
ble.html> this,
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100526/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill;_ylt=ArN0
sQOh44H9NooB0_6.k62s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNobWswNzlsBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNTI2L3VzX2
d1bGZfb2lsX3NwaWxsBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMQRwb3MDMgRwdANob21lX2Nva2
UEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDYnBiZWdpbnNub3Zl> this and
<http://www.businessinsider.com/deepwater-survivor-bp-transocean-haliburton-
were-gambling-with-our-lives-2010-5> this.
<http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~4/r4XzCeXljVE>

View article...
<http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/r4XzCeXljVE/did-bp-keep-dr
illing-even-though-it-had-lost-control-oil-well-much-earlier-0>

Feds: Seepage near BP cap is from another well - Disaster in the Gulf - msnbc.com

Seems BP ain't alone....

Feds: Seepage near BP cap is from another well

'We've found nothing that would be consequential,' Allen says

WASHINGTON — The federal government's oil spill chief said Tuesday that seepage detected two miles from BP's oil cap is coming from another well.

There are two wells within two miles of BP's blowout, one that has been abandoned and another that is not in production.

There are around 27,000 abandoned wells in the Gulf, and an Associated Press investigation showed this month that they're not checked for leaks.

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said at a Tuesday afternoon briefing that five leaks in and around the broken well are more like 'drips' and don't mean the well is unstable. He's extended testing of the experimental cap by another day, which means the oil will remain shut in.

"We've found nothing that would be consequential," retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said in a news conference, The Times-Picayune reported on its website.

The mechanical cap has stopped the oil since Thursday. But several leaks had caused mounting concern that the cap was displacing pressure and causing leaks deep underground.

If oil is leaking through bedrock and mud, it could cause instability in the sea floor and make the environmental disaster even worse and harder to fix.

Feds: Seepage near BP cap is from another well - Disaster in the Gulf - msnbc.com

________________________

FW: Pdvsa huele a podrido

Pdvsa le huele a podrido hasta a Chávez <http://www.icnr.es/articulo.php?n=100710072947>
Tras el escándalo de 110.000 toneladas de comida podrida de su filial Pdval, hay 400.000 ‘extraviadas’, un 70% de las que importó en 2009
Perdió un 40% de producción y un 35% de beneficios en la era Chávez y aporta un 76% menos a fondos sociales
Intelligence and Capital News Report
Ana Zarzuela.- No se resigna. Hugo Chávez tenía preparada su metamorfosis para Pdvsa. Un nuevo nombre a estrenar este verano -Petróleos de Venezuela Socialista-, el viejo ‘capitán’ de su confianza, el ministro Ramírez, y nuevas funciones para una empresa a la que Chávez ha convertido en importadora de comida, gestora de sanidad o promotora agrícola por igual. Todo con tal de tratar de resucitar -al menos salvar de la ruina pública- a la que hasta su intervención hace ocho años era la mayor petrolera latinoamericana. Pero el ‘humo’ de Pdval (la filial de alimentos), el escándalo por las 110.000 toneladas que la maquinaria estatal dejó pudrir, destapan todos los ‘incendios’ operativos y financieros del conjunto de Pdvsa y encienden las ‘ascuas’  políticas en Miraflores. Y es que, paradojas chavistas, el quinto exportador mundial de crudo derrapa sobre las segundas reservas mundiales (211.173 millones de barriles) y Pvdsa es ya la ‘oveja negra’ de las petroleras paraestatales.
Ha perdido un millón de barriles de capacidad productiva; en un año cayeron un 35% sus beneficios, aporta un 76% menos a fondos sociales y, con más de 24.000 millones de dólares de deuda, depende de la voluntad de las multinacionales y de créditos foráneos por más de 50.000 millones de dólares. Nada puede seguir igual para Petróleos de Venezuela, aunque Chávez  no se resiste a su huida hacia adelante con las nacionalizaciones. Pero la de las 11 torres de la estadounidense Helmeritch no opaca que Pdvsa pierde también el pulso a Obama: ha pasado de tercer a quinto exportador a EE UU, Citgo acumula rojos por 150 millones de dólares trimestrales y no ha podido emitir los 1.500 millones en bonos previstos para financiar a Pdvsa.
Quiso hacer de Pdvsa el motor de su ‘revolución’ bolivariana. Una que por primera vez en América Latina -decían los ideólogos cercanos a Chávez- iba a ser rica, con suficiente ‘oro negro’ como para sacudir su autarquía por toda la región. Eso era en 2001, en plena intervención estatal. Ya sobre la mesa de Chávez, desde hace meses, lo alarmaban las alertas de técnicos y algunos directivos de Petróleos de Venezuela. Pero es ahora cuando en Miraflores han empezado, por primera vez, a soltar el lastre de Petróleos de Venezuela y a engranar la marcha atrás, dentro y fuera de sus fronteras. La petrolera es ya la niña bonita de las pesadillas de Chávez y el heraldo de la peor crisis de gestión de los ministros Ramírez y Diosdado Cabello, una que tiene además conexión cubana. La Administración ha devuelto a la nevera de las nacionalizaciones a la empresa Polar y ha revertido la prohibición de bodegas privadas en las que se distribuya alimentación. Si cumple su palabra, por primera vez, habrá compensación económica para la incautación de 11 torres de taladro petrolífero para Pdvsa de la estadounidense Helmeritch, como exige Barack Obama.
Entre los asesores del presidente saben ya que, a la vista del mayor escándalo de los tres Gobiernos de Hugo Chávez es mejor empezar a dar por perdidas un par de batallas de la petrolera para que no se cuestione el conjunto. Pero ya han comenzado a sospechar también que ni el humo del escándalo de Pdval -la filial de Pdvsa dedicada a la importación y la distribución de alimentos- ni la ‘transparencia oficial’ después de un mes de negativas acerca del derrame petrolero sobre la décima parte de la extensión del lago Maracaibo serán suficientes para opacar todos los fuegos en los que arde ya Pdvsa. Y es que sus heridas más sangrantes son las que no se ven aún, ni con Pdval, ni con el conjunto de la petrolera y sus 5.250 empresas satélites.
Las 110.000 toneladas de comida comprada por el Estado que la filial de Petróleos de Venezuela dejó pudrir sin distribuir, aunque suponen un 9% del total gestionado por Pdvsa que se logró importar el año pasado, el equivalente casi a las 191.000 que llegaron a los consumidores -y además la evidencia de que la petrolera estaba muy lejos del 1,7 millones de toneladas de su propio plan estratégico para este año- no son más que el cabo de un ovillo que se le empieza a deshilachar a Hugo Chávez en las manos. Y, aún peor a sus ojos, a enredarse en el organigrama de sus guerras de Palacio, las que enfrentan a los ‘ramiristas’ con los partidarios de Elías Jaua y entre todos con el ministro Diosdado Cabello, las tres ‘manos derechas’ de Chávez. Miraflores quiere culpables que enseñar a la galería. Ha quedado en evidencia que Pdvsa sólo pudo procesar 3.633 toneladas métricas de alimentos en el primer trimestre, un tercio de sus objetivos, pero sobre todo, que, después de comprarle al exterior una media de un millón de toneladas anuales, el 70% del dinero gastado por Pdvsa en importar alimentos en 2009 se perdió en los recovecos de su laberinto. En 2009 sólo distribuyó y vendió 191.000 tm, lo que deja aún en el limbo a 448.000 millones de toneladas (quizá las 110.000 podridas se descuenten de ellas).
No será suficiente con ver al anterior responsable de Pdval, Luis Pulido, en prisión. Menos aún para evitar que las aguas de Pdval lleguen al ‘río cubano’. Como ha desvelado durante las últimas semanas Alejandro Botía en Tal Cual, como Bariven no tenía experiencia en compra y gestión de alimentos, se creó un equipo de asesores cubanos para ellos. Y ante la evidencia de que el desorden de gestión de los puertos impedía descargar mucha de la mercancía en ellos desde que los gestionaba la cubano-venezolana BoliPuertos, se desviaron muchos barcos de comida a Cuba, hasta 68.000 toneladas métricas (tm) de alimentos. El choque de espadas -después de la denuncia del Defensor del Pueblo- está servido y estalla ya a las puertas de la Fiscal General del Estado: sobre su mesa, el informe del Contralor, que le recuerda que la denuncia sobre los alimentos podridos de Pdvsa tenía más de un año.
Por primera vez está en cuestión el ministro Ramírez, presidente de la petrolera, aunque insiste en la responsabilidad de operadores privados y en el “boicot” de la oposición, ha confesado que los alimentos podridos estaban “no conformes”, aún a costa de rebotar nuevas sospechas sobre los tejados de Bolipuertos, la empresa también estatal encargada de la distribución nacional bajo mando de Cabello. Ramírez tendrá que dar cuentas ante una comisión parlamentaria, pero sobre todo, ha perdido ya el control de Pdval, ahora en manos del vicepresidente Jaua. Es sólo el preludio de la ‘Nueva Pdvsa Socialista’ de Chávez que ahora llegará con un aterrizaje forzoso y -si Miraflores encuentra la fórmula- con nuevos pagadores, a ser posible foráneos.
TODA PDVSA HACE AGUAS
Lejos queda 2006, cuando Chávez paseaba los galones de la entonces mayor petrolera de Latinoamérica, el tercer proveedor de crudo en los mapas de George W. Bush y aseguraba que estaba listo para ser el “proveedor de todo occidente”. Hoy Pdvsa respira por las heridas de la operación, de su músculo financiero y del tejido de una diplomacia con la que buscaba la hegemonía al sur del Río Grande. No hace ni cinco años, las tres grandes petroleras paraestatales se repartían los galones, los proyectos y el mapa americano de la mayoría de las reservas de hidrocarburos del continente. Hoy, sólo el ranking por reservas favorece aún a Petróleos de Venezuela y deja a la brasileña en segundo lugar, por delante de Petróleos de México; pero Petrobrás le pisa los talones de la producción a PEMEX y, según los analistas independientes, hace meses que bordea la producción real de Pdvsa. No es nada, en realidad, que no haya sucedido ya, en la senda de las estatalizaciones, con el desaparecido Intevep, con la crisis de las empresas de Guayana, el Metro de Caracas, o  la Electricidad de Caracas. Pero, en la piel de Pdvsa, esta vez la ‘habilidad’ anti-Midas del presidente bolivariano empieza a pasarle facturas más que energéticas y económicas.
En 2009 sus beneficios cayeron un 35%, sus ingresos un 42% (hasta 4.600 millones, menos de la deuda pendiente con proveedores), nada que se pueda explicar, como pretenden los mensajes de Ramírez desde la bajada de precios (además el precio del petróleo venezolano se ha mantenido este año unos 13 dólares por encima del promedio del año pasado) y las restricciones impuestas por la OPEP. Su producción máxima -lo advierte la OPEP- no alcanza los 2,9 millones de barriles diarios (lejos de los 3,2 que proclama el gabinete de Ramírez) y ha perdido un tercio de capacidad productiva desde que se estatalizó con el modelo chavista, un millón de barriles diarios de diferencia desde la llegada al poder de Hugo Chávez. Las divisas no han alcanzado para los nuevos ‘mejoradores’ de  la faja del Orinoco, se ha tenido que conformar con arrendar buques para la explotación offshore con más de tres décadas de vida; ya ni cumple el contrato colectivo porque carece de recursos. La propia directiva confiesa que tiene escasez de personal cualificado para la Faja y sus planes gasistas, aunque desde 2003 ha triplicado su mano de obra, hoy con 110.000 trabajadores, parte de ellos los ‘digeridos’ en cada expropiación.
El derrame del lago Maracaibo, aunque es el más extenso y afecta a las relaciones con Bogotá y los envíos a Washington, sólo es el último de una secuencia que pasa en los últimos  meses por el derrame aún sin solucionar en la bahía de Amuaycito y dos fugas de gas en el Orinoco. En el último año, abarrotada de compromisos de inversión propios y ajenos -el proceso la adquisición de las empresas eléctricas- y con un flujo de caja ajustado, Pdvsa recurrió al financiamiento externo y contrajo más de 13.000 millones de dólares en deuda nueva en un solo año. Esto elevó la relación entre su deuda y patrimonio de un 9 a casi un 30%. Y hasta el papel de Pdvsa como ‘caja de caudales’ de la revolución ha empezado a erosionarse, aunque tiene filiales para distribuir leche en polvo, cosechar maíz y construir buques cisterna y a sus empleados también trabajando en programas sociales, frecuentemente con maestros y médicos cubanos. En los últimos doce meses, sus aportes al Fonden cayeron un 95%, hasta los 569 millones de dólares. Ya durante 2009 destinó 1.555 millones de dólares a la compra de alimentos, un 29,3% menos que el ejercicio anterior y ni el escándalo de ‘Pudreval’ (como la conocen ya los venezolanos), opaca que la red de Pdvalitos, los establecimientos  dedicados a distribuir toda esa comida, se redujo en un 39% durante los últimos doce meses.
Ni la movilización de más de 600.000 toneladas de comida en 2009 -aunque ahora sólo reconozcan que se repartieron 190.000- para subvencionar la cesta de la compra de los venezolanos a través por cierto del ‘brazo alimentario’ de Pdvsa, Pdval, ni el control de los silos de cereales por parte del Estado, ni la intervención en más de 3.900 empresas de alimentación y distribución con la Ley Orgánica de Seguridad y Soberanía Alimentaria, o la nacionalización de los gigantes del sector como la cadena de hipermercados Éxito, los galpones a Polar y el decomiso de 114.000 toneladas de alimentos y nacionalización de la empresa Monaca (de accionariado español) han contenido el doble tentáculo del desabastecimiento y la inflación, que en los cinco primeros meses del año ha escalado un 11,3% y que según los analistas locales cerrará el año en torno al 35% en su cota interanual. El escándalo de Pdval (compras a precio oficial y ventas en mercado paralelo), ha evidenciado que ni el control del precio básico de los alimentos fijado por el Estado en un país en el que el 80% del consumo es de importación le ha podido poner ‘puertas al campo’. Todo lo contrario: los controles represan la inflación, desincentivan la inversión y la producción y cuando se aplican los ajustes, los precios se disparan más aún. Lo han hecho los agrícolas, más de un 44% en este año.
Pero sobre todo, Petróleos de Venezuela dejó de entregar 18.700 millones de dólares al BCV. Hasta 2005 debía aportarle todo lo percibido por exportaciones, desde 2008, sólo el 42%, una línea roja que ya se salta también. Opera cada vez más fuera del escrutinio público, en una tierra de nadie en la que han prosperado el escándalo de los maletines con Buenos Aires, o ahora el de Pdval. La compañía pagó la deuda inscrita ante la Comisión de Bolsa y Valores (SEC) de Estados Unidos en el 2005, de modo que ya no tiene que presentar declaraciones financieras a esta institución. Y el Fondo de Desarrollo Nacional del gobierno venezolano, que ha recibido más de 30,000 millones de dólares de Pdvsa desde el 2005, opera fuera de los libros oficiales. Nada que pueda esconder que ni a Pdvsa le llega al cuello la camisa de sus deudas, ni a Miraflores y sus Fondos Sociales -sobre todo el Fonden- les salen unas cuentas que se saldaban hasta ahora sólo gracias a los números de Pdvsa. Sólo a la vista de sus más de 24.000 millones de deuda y del retraso en  más de 5.000 millones de dólares en pago a proveedores se entiende -según los analistas- que emitiera bonos de deuda por unos 6.000 millones de dólares el año pasado; que en junio suscribiera un crédito sindicado por 1.500 millones de dólares (aunque esperaba por las emisiones de Citgo) y que haya terminado por nacionalizar a los proveedores rebeldes. Y es que Pdvsa es la primera rehén de su laberinto: en la Memoria 2009 no detalla el monto de las cuentas a pagar con proveedores, pero sí reconoce que el retraso afectó a sus planes: ante la caída de sus ingresos retrasó pagos y exigió a todas las empresas de servicios, incluyendo taladros, una rebaja de tarifas; las que no se acoplaron -casi una veintena- acabaron en la sala de espera de las nacionalizaciones.
LA CARA EXTERIOR DE PDVSA, TAMBIÉN EN CUESTIÓN
Si hasta ahora, las ‘vergüenzas’ de la petrolera de cabecera de Miraflores se ventilaban en casa, han empezado a salpicar más allá de sus fronteras. Colombia estudia una denuncia contra Venezuela por el derrame de Maracaibo. En el aire, tras el viaje esta semana a Caracas del presidente Sirio, la refinería de Damasco que debía estar operativa desde 2013. Nada, en realidad que no haya sucedido con Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil o Paraguay. La propia Memoria y Cuenta 2009 de la petrolera publicada por El Universal entona los detalles de sus zozobras exteriores: con Petrocaribe, “hubo problemas para impulsar los proyectos de construcción de infraestructuras energéticas por la poca o ninguna capacidad financiera de los socios”, además “se registraron retrasos en los pagos y transferencias para la operación de las empresas mixtas y cancelar obligaciones a los contratistas”. No se pudo avanzar en el complejo refinador con Ecuador, cumplir con el plan de estaciones de servicio de Argentina, ni su proyecto de regasificación.
Los avances en el proyecto amazónico de Petrobras -transportará desde este año 5,5 millones de metros cúbicos por día del combustible, para generar unos 760 megavatios (MW) de electricidad- adelantan por la derecha al Gasoducto del Sur de Chávez, que sigue huérfano de realismo, financiación y socios. Y ni siquiera Rusia, que coquetea con una sucursal de la Guerra Fría en tierras bolivarianas y anuncia desde hace meses un Banco ruso-venezolano ha conseguido que Gazprom o Lukoil, con su promesa de 3.000 millones para invertir en la Faja del Orinoco vayan hasta ahora mucho más lejos de las buenas palabras y los entretenimientos militares a cuatro manos. Pdvsa se aferra a la posibilidad de proveeer a China, Vietnam y Rusia, para lo que necesita pasar en tres años a unos 4,9 millones de barriles desde los menos de 3 millones actuales, pero no suelta las promesas de seguir enviando a sus aliados -sin cobrarles nada a cambio- hasta un 15% de lo que el país exporta. Los analistas descuentan que esa generosidad bolivariana que le ha llevado a donar 53.000 millones de dólares a 33 países -casi un tercio a Cuba- en su década de gobierno, a reflejar en sus informes 11.500 barriles diarios de diésel a Bolivia, o dos torres de perforación con personal (como las que escasean en Venezuela) será ya muy pronto un viento de otra historia. El Gobierno de Chávez no dejará de venderles a sus 18 socios de Petrocaribe 200.000 barriles diarios, al menos por el momento, pero ya cambió las condiciones de pago aplazado y -aunque sea a crédito- se aferra a los precios de tiempos mejores, las cotizaciones flexibles en sintonía con el mercado y la promesa de una dependencia garantizada por décadas.
Del gas ni hablar. No, al menos por ahora. Hoy la producción de gas natural es tan baja que no permite llegar ni a la mitad de las necesidades nacionales y Pdvsa aún tiene sobre la mesa el hundimiento de la plataforma de Aban Pearl, apenas días después de que Chávez orquestara en ella una de sus inauguraciones majestuosas, que hará que se lo piense dos veces con el acelerón de los proyectos de explotación de gas natural costa afuera, que es donde el país posee la mayor cantidad de reservas libres. Venezuela cuenta con reservas de gas por el orden de los 150 trillones de pies cúbicos, pero están asociadas al petróleo en un 85% y sólo las importaciones podrán compensar su déficit de 1.500 pies cúbicos de gas por día, aunque esperaba producir 1.500 millones de pies cúbicos diarios. El ministro Ramírez mira ya otra vez a la Faja del Orinoco y a su petróleo. Intenta olvidar el retraso en las licitaciones, los recelos de muchas multinacionales y el paso atrás de Petrobrás, o Chevron. Ahora que el Servicio Geológico de EE UU determinó que en ella hay 513.000 millones de barriles de crudo extraíbles, quiere “producción temprana en dos o tres años”, busca un órdago técnico con el que limpiarle alguna mancha a Pdvsa y acallar la oleada de escándalos. Es su última baza. Pero sabe que se juega en manos multinacionales. Y es que, si ahora su directiva reconoce que no hay suficiente personal especializado que requiere la Faja, el modelo de empresas mixtas impuesto por el Gobierno de Caracas ha terminado por dejar en manos de Pdvsa el 60% del capital accionarial y las reservas y el crudo producido, pero también, la carga de las inversiones que ahora no puede cumplir.
Lo ha empezado a orquestar, a la fuerza, con su particular batalla a los ‘taladros’, lo justo como para espantar aún más a las multinacionales: si la dirección de Pdvsa reconocía que necesitaba 191 torres perforadoras nuevas para cumplir sus planes de perforación, en 2009 sólo consiguió 71 activas. Los taladros de arrendamiento privado han huido desde 2003, más ahora que escasean en todos los mercados. Chávez empieza a sospechar que ‘parió un ratón’ con su modelo de soberanía energética y quiere, otra vez, volver a cambiarlo. Con el actual, el Estado venezolano deja el 40% del crudo de la faja del Orinoco a las empresas transnacionales, que lo pueden comercializar fuera de la estructura operativa de Pdvsa por lapsos que podrían extender hasta por 40 años, la opción a la que se acoge del Consorcio Nacional Petrolero Ruso. Pero además, las estrecheces financieras de Pdvsa han dejado su producción futura en manos de Moscú y Pekín. Aunque el Estado Venezolano tiene los más bajos niveles de rentabilidad de sus bonos, del 15,55%, los bancos de inversión y los analistas descuentan que Pdvsa aún tenía capacidad de endeudamiento, pero no más allá de un año.
Es la propia Memoria y Cuenta de Petróleos de Venezuela la que reconoce ya sus líneas rojas: se ha convertido en un eslabón más de una maldición energética que ha encadenado el desabastecimiento eléctrico a las limitaciones de las refinerías El Palito y Puerto La Cruz; con la prohibición de exportaciones se limitó el procesamiento de crudo, se llegó a un margen negativo en refinación y se cronificó una. Lo ha sentido hasta Obama: la crisis eléctrica derivó en déficit de gas, que obligó a acelerar la utilización de plantas de generación distribuida, que, junto a las centrales de ciclo combinado y las térmicas privadas de gas, han consumido el fueloil predestinado a la exportación. Las plantas como la de Tacoa consumen parte del combustible que se enviaba a EE UU. Será sólo el ‘aperitivo’ del segundo escalón en su ‘infierno’ energético. Se han atrevido a advertirles ya los técnicos de Pdvsa y Corpoelec: si no hay cambios de tendencia, tendrá que sumar la escasez de gasolina, no habrá suficiente energía en las plantas para generar las mejoras en las petroquímicas. El analista petrolero Rafael Quiroz Serrano le pone apellidos: "los recursos se han malgastado en importaciones y no en la creación de riqueza nacional. Se cambiado el petróleo por una quincallería de importaciones”. La ‘ecuación’ se complica con el déficit de suministro de gas a las plantas de generación térmica, cuyas unidades alimentadas exclusivamente con ese combustible están fuera de servicio. El gas natural producido en Venezuela está mayoritariamente asociado al petróleo y 60% de ese gas lo utiliza la industria para reactivar los pozos. Sólo el porcentaje restante es destinado a las empresas petroquímicas, eléctricas y siderúrgicas.
PDVSA ‘PINCHA’ ANTE LA CASA BLANCA
Ni la declaración oficial por parte de Barack Obama de que se busca un suplidor que pueda amortiguar a Arabia Saudí y sumar en un 10% las importaciones de hidrocarburos a Estados Unidos, ni las ventajas de la proximidad venezolana (a sólo cinco días de transporte) han llovido a favor de Pdvsa. Todo lo contrario. Semestre tras semestre, Petróleos de Venezuela pierde cuota en el mercado norteamericano, a favor de Petrobrás y PEMEX, antes de nada. Las tres mayores agencias de calificación de bonos de Estados Unidos colocan la deuda de Venezuela por debajo de nivel de inversión aceptable, mientras la petrolera brasileña y la mexicana disfrutan de una calificación de inversión. Tras un trimestre en el que sus exportaciones descendieron un 10,49%, en menos de tres años ha pasado de ser el tercer suplidor al quinto lugar, por detrás no sólo de Canadá (2,4 millones de barriles por día), México, Arabia Saudí (1,2 millones), sino de Nigeria, (aumentó su despacho en 16,94% en abril) según el Departamento de Energía de EEUU, con apenas 950.000 barriles diarios Las exportaciones de Libia subieron 158,7% al variar de 63.000 a 163.000 barriles por día, mientras que las de Colombia aumentaron 68,5%, al pasar de 251.000 a 423.000 barriles diarios.
Si la ‘diplomacia amiga’ ha terminado en repliegue, la batalla energética contra el enemigo del Norte, una que aspiraba a ganarle la carta de la dependencia y convertirse en el ‘caballo de Troya’ del crudo y los derivados del segundo mercado mayor del mundo, pinta bastos para Citgo, el brazo americano de Pdvsa. Se lo dejaba caer la propia Hillary Clinton: hay medidas venezolanas que, simplemente, no funcionan. Ni un circuito refinador con ocho grandes plantas -tuvo que desprenderse ya de tres- ni 13.500 estaciones de servicio, ocho oleoductos, presencia en 27 estados y los galones del tercer operador de refinerías independiente del país esconden la erosión de su peso, su rentabilidad y su músculo financiero. Venezuela produce cada vez menos crudo pesado y tiene comprometido -a golpe de acuerdos crediticios- cada vez más con China. Citgo perdía 200 millones de dólares en 2009 y, durante los primeros cuatro meses de 2010 ya acumula rojos que superan los 120 millones. Las exportaciones de derivados venezolanos a EE UU cayeron un 72% desde 2006, hasta los 97.000 bpd y desde 2005 EE UU no ha recibido ni un barril de gasolina reformulada de Venezuela, según la EIA estadounidense.
Citgo, con 2.402 millones de dólares de deuda propia, ya no puede ser ni siquiera el tentáculo para la pesca financiera de Pdvsa en las plazas internacionales. A la vista del repudio en los mercados y de las advertencias de los bancos de inversión y las agencias de rating (Fitch lo ha rebajado a B+), Citgo -con dos líneas de crédito por 1.100 millones de vencimiento próximo- ha tenido que desistir de su idea original de emitir 1.500 millones de dólares en Bonos Globales, emitir sólo 300 y recurrir a préstamos bancarios en dos créditos por 1.200 millones de dólares. Ni siquiera el uso como garantía de tres de sus refinerías fue suficiente. Y, a la vista de la advertencia de la Secretaria de Estado de Comercio de  EE UU y los litigios pendientes por más de 43.000 millones ante el Ciadi -la mayoría a punto de su resolución- y del reconocimiento del Ciadi el 16 de junio del arbitraje de la denuncia de la taiwanesa OPIC, por primera vez, en Miraflores y el despacho del ministro Ramírez empiezan a sospechar que los 25 acuerdos de comercio firmados con los países de origen de las multinacionales no serán tan fáciles de driblar. Para cubrirse las espaldas en el futuro, Pdvsa evita ahora incluir cláusulas arbitrales en los contratos.

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