China Development Bank will reportedly invest $250 million in Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt in an effort to stave off the decline of the country’s heavy oil production. That comes as China is also mulling a much larger $5 billion investment plan in Venezuela. Venezuela’s oil production has fallen by more than half in the last few years, with output down to just 1.36 million barrels per day in June, according to the IEA. The investment from China does not come from mere altruism. Venezuela has been sending China several hundred thousand barrels per day of oil for several years as repayment for past loans. But the catastrophic decline of Venezuela’s oil production threatened those shipments. China was in danger of never being paid back for the tens of billions of dollars that it loaned to Venezuela. The crisis rose to a new level the last two months. The seizure of […]