Russia reaches outline debt restructuring agreement with Venezuela -RIA

MOSCOW– 14 October 2017: Russia has reached a general agreement with Venezuela on restructuring its debt to Moscow, RIA news agency cited Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov as saying on Saturday.

Siluanov said Moscow hoped that it could complete talks with Caracas on restructuring its debt by the end of this year. He stressed that the talks were about debt restructuring, not about writing off the debt.

Russia’s largest oil producer, Rosneft, is buying a growing volume of Venezuelan crude and other products while extending loans to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government.

Rosneft said in August it had made around $6 billion in pre-payments to the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA and had no immediate plans to make any further advance payments soon.