Caracas, Venezuela – Venezuela’s state oil company will buy back $83 million in debt registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, allowing it to stop filing public financial reports with the agency.
Petroleos de Venezuela SA will said Wednesday it will submit its final report – its 2004 financial results – to the SEC in the last week of March, PDVSA’s finance director, Eudomario Carruyo, said in a statement.
“We have no reason to be registered with the SEC if we’re not going to have debts” registered with the agency, Carruyo said.
Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez has said previously that PDVSA would pay off its debt traded in U.S. markets, calling it “unacceptable” for a Venezuelan state company to have to report to foreign countries.
Carruyo added that PDVSA has total outstanding foreign debt of $3.33 billion.
The SEC filings disclose to investors key details about how the company operates, such as income from exports, refining, production and reserves.
Ramirez has said PDVSA will continue to audit its financial results.
PDVSA is nearly a year behind on filing its 2004 results with the SEC. President Hugo Chavez’s government has said the delays in the reports came after the government was forced to fire thousands of workers in 2003 after an anti-Chavez strike that nearly paralyzed the country’s key oil industry.
PDVSA has about $1 billion in dividends on 2004 earnings that have not been paid because of the accounting delays, company officials have said.
Venezuela is the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter and a major supplier of fuel to the United States.
