Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro (left) is welcomed by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Salman in Riyadh yesterday. Venezuela’s economy contracted in the first three quarters of 2014 and its international reserves have deteriorated sharply due to the tumbling oil prices which hit new lows last week below $50 per barrel, around half their value in June 2014.
Reuters/Riyadh
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro met Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Salman in Riyadh yesterday as part of a diplomatic tour of Opec members to discuss falling oil prices, which have hit the South American nation’s economy hard.
The Saudi side in the meeting included Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi and several top princes including Deputy Crown Prince Muqrin, intelligence chief Prince Khaled bin Bandar and three sons of King Abdullah, who is in hospital, state media reported.
No details of the meeting were given by the official Saudi Press Agency and neither Maduro nor his delegation have made any comment about their talks. On Saturday Iran vowed to help Venezuela stem the oil prices fall.
Maduro’ next stop will be in Qatar, followed by a visit to Algeria.
Venezuela’s economy contracted in the first three quarters of 2014 and its international reserves have deteriorated sharply due to the tumbling oil prices which hit new lows last week below $50 per barrel, around half their value in June 2014. The decline has spurred concerns that Venezuela may default on its foreign bonds, which in turn has pushed its bond yields to the highest of any emerging market nation. Maduro has denied his country will default.
At the last Opec meeting on November 27, Saudi Arabia blocked calls from poorer members of the Opec oil exporter group for production cuts to arrest a slide in global prices.
Venezuela said last month it was considering backing a call for an emergency Opec meeting depending upon how oil prices perform in the first quarter of 2015.
