Receivables

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2018

As of December 31, 2018, 43% of our net trade receivables were from customers in the United States. As of December 31, 2017, 42% of our net trade receivables were from customers in the United States. No other country or single customer accounted for more than 10% of our net trade receivables at these dates.

We routinely monitor the financial stability of our customers and employ an extensive process to evaluate the collectability of outstanding receivables. This process, which involves a high degree of judgment utilizing significant assumptions, includes analysis of our customers’ historical time to pay, financial condition and various financial metrics, debt structure, credit agency ratings, and production profile, as well as political and economic factors in countries of operations and other customer-specific factors.

Venezuela. During the first quarter of 2018, the Venezuelan government announced that it changed the existing dual-rate foreign currency exchange system by eliminating the DIPRO foreign exchange rate, which was 10 Bolívares per United States dollar, and that all future currency transactions would be carried out at the DICOM floating rate, which was approximately 50,000 Bolívares per United States dollar at March 31, 2018. Additionally, the U.S. government issued guidance on sanctions against Venezuela during the quarter. These events, combined with continued deteriorating political and economic

conditions in Venezuela and ongoing delayed payments on existing accounts receivable with customers in the country, created significant uncertainties regarding the recoverability of our investment. As such, we determined it was appropriate to write down all of our remaining investment in Venezuela during the first quarter of 2018, which resulted in a $312 million charge, net of tax. This consisted of $119 million of allowance for doubtful accounts related to remaining accounts receivable, a $32 million write-off of our promissory note from our primary customer in Venezuela, and write-offs of $48 million of inventory, $53 million of fixed assets and $13 million of other assets and liabilities, all of which were included within "Impairments and other charges" in our consolidated statements of operations, in addition to $47 million of accrued taxes recognized in our tax provision. We have maintained limited operations in Venezuela and have changed our accounting for revenue with all customers in the country to a cash basis, effective April 1, 2018, while carefully managing our exposure.

The following table presents a rollforward of our global allowance for bad debts for 2016, 2017 and 2018.



Millions of dollars	Balance at Beginning of Period		Provision (a)		Other (b)			Balance at End of Period
Year ended December 31, 2016	$	145	$	50	$	(20	)	$	175
Year ended December 31, 2017	175		566		(16		)	725
Year ended December 31, 2018	725		57		(44		)	738

(a) Represents increases to allowance for bad debts charged to costs and expenses, net of recoveries.

(b) Includes write-offs, balance sheet reclassifications, and other activity.