An Ailing Venezuela Trims Oil Diplomacy

Even as Venezuela pledges to continue the program, the country’s oil exports to the countries fell about 20% through October compared with the same period last year, says ClipperData LLC, a New York data tracker. And last year, Venezuela’s cut-rate oil exports declined 15% from 2012, the International Monetary Fund says. Several participants in the program, called Petrocaribe, are preparing for further declines, which diplomats said stand to upend spending plans and tip some economies into recession. “If Petrocaribe pulls out of Jamaica I don’t know how we are going to manage,” said Verona Barrett-Brown, the principal of a Kingston-area primary school that displays the name of Venezuela’s national oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, or PdVSA, on the wall. “It will be a dark day.” More…