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Barrow Admin Says It Must Part Ways With Unreliable Venezuelan Fuel Supply
posted (September 15, 2017)
And while the UDP will continue to publicly ventilate those inner divisions - the position on Petrocaribe is much more reserved.

As we told you last night, APBEL - short for ALBA Petrocaribe Belize Energy Limited - announced that it is immediately suspending purchases of petroleum products from Venezueala's national oil company, PDVSA (pede-vesa) under the PetroCaribe Agreement.

Today, Deputy PM Faber explained that with the difficulties in Venezueala, it's just become too difficult to use PDVSA as a reliable source of fuel.

Hon. Patrick Faber, Deputy Prime Minister
"Venezuela as a source for petrol is now very problematic, so much so that in fact on quite a few occasions now we have had to import fuel by road and of course this causes the price to fluctuate and we're not able to have as great a control as we would normally have. So if that supply, is unsteady then it's not the most reliable thing for us to rely on."

"So I think it is timely it is very important for us to have a reliable source for our fuel and that is why that decision has been made."

So, is the Barrow Administration now turning its backs on the Venezuelans after receiving funding of nearly half a billion dollars through Petrocaribe? Faber says Belize continues to support Venezuela in a very general sense - but he clearly wished to draw the line with some of the tactics of the Maduro administration - which appear un-democratic:

Hon. Patrick Faber, Deputy Prime Minister
"I think it's no secret to Belizeans that our country has benefitted tremendously from that arrangement and, you know, things in Venezuela are very "iffy", but we continue stand by them even though our position is that we must support every democratic processes wherever it is in this world. And, so we, while Venezuela is a friendly country to us, we also insist on democracy and the democratic principle that we support to be implemented din that country. It does create a very difficult situation, ah, but, ah, our basically principles of democracy must prevail. We thank them for friendship and where we can side with them we will do so."

The Petrocaribe agreement remains intact and the program may be re-activated at a later time, but…best advice? Don't hold your breath.

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