Venezela PDVSA gets $5 Bil loal from Glencores in exchange for crude

By Edgar Ang, eang@opisnet.com - Major trading house Glencore has granted a loan of $5 billion toVenezuelan state-owned oil company PDVSA in exchange for crude and oil products,sources close to PDVSA told OPIS on Wednesday. This came as a surprise as Glencore has not been an active directbuyer of Venezuelan crude and products for a long time. This also reflected the cash flow problems at PDVSA, which is keen tosecure upfront cash to maintain the country's social needs such as healthcare. Glencore has so far advanced $800,000 to PDVSA, with the rest to goto PDVSA at a later date. It is expected that PDVSA would receive the huge loan ininstallments. Although this deal is effective immediately, Glencore has yet to liftany crude and products from Venezuela so far in September. The tie-up between Glencore and PDVSA is extended to Glencore's crudesales to PDVSA in Europe. PDVSA has crude sales obligations to La Harve port in France, but itawarded two six-month long-term contracts to BP and Glencore. This is also effective immediately. BP and Glencore will supply 1 million bbl per month of crude onbehalf of PDVSA to La Harve. This is due to PDVSA having "problems" meetingthat obligation.