I'm warning you right now: I have not yet had a chance to actually look through PDVSA's books yet, released last week. But already there have been some rumblings about changes since the February figures. Dow Jones ran a piece yesterday that addresses this. I'm not clear on how much of this article is behind a paywall, so for now I'll just list the highlights here. This will certainly not be the last post we do on PDVSA's liquidity situation:
- Debts to suppliers were recorded as $7.56 billion at the end of 2008 in the latest audited results, but the bill is nearly half the $13.8 billion originally reported to Congress earlier in the year.
- The company's profits recorded in the latest audited results sit at $9.4 billion, down from $12 billion in the previous year-end report. The company also states the income tax paid last year was $4.28 billion, 44% less than reported in the February figures.
- PdVSA now says it deposited $12 billion into the Fonden development fund, President Hugo Chavez's favored spending vehicle, and reduced direct allocations to social programs to $2.3 billion last year. This conflicts with previous figures that put PdVSA's Fonden funding in 2008 at no more than $5.5 billion, due to the oil price decline.
- The issue of how much oil Venezuela produces is a heated debate among Chavez's supporters, who say it's three million barrels a day, and detractors who claim its one million barrels less.
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