Venezuela's oil money under US custody: seven months and no audit

Since January, Venezuelan oil revenue has flowed into accounts held by the US Treasury and is spent with State Department authorisation. The Financial Times estimated this week, using Kpler shipping data and Argus Media price assessments, that the accrued total exceeds US$13 billion. That is a journalistic estimate: the US government has never published a revenue figure.

What it did say, in April, was that it had authorised disbursements of about US$3 billion and that KPMG would conduct quarterly audits. Seven months into the custody arrangement, no audit has been published. The arrangement was justified by Venezuela's corruption record. That same argument is what now binds the custodian.