The economist and oil expert Rafael Quiroz pointed out that the most Venezuela could produce this year is one million barrels per day. In his opinion it is “impossible” for the country to produce 2,000,000 barrels of crude oil per day, as it has proposed. the Venezuelan government.
Quiroz expressed during an interview with the Venezuelan Finance Observatory (OVF) that one million barrels per day could be reached if Venezuela meets at least two conditions: the first would be to settle the debt with Chevron, to whom the state-owned PDVSA owes more than 2,000 million dollars and the second is related to the relaxation of the sanctions that Venezuela has by the United States.
The economist explained that in order to reach the goal proposed by the national government it is necessary to increase “production during this year by more than 1,100,000 barrels per day” and recalled that the “only countries that have managed to increase production by more than one million daily It has been the United States and Saudi Arabia.”
He reminded the expert that the best years of the oil sector in Venezuela were at the beginning of the seventies, when in 1971 the country managed to increase its annual production to “474,000 barrels per day and in 2004, with 410,000 barrels per day”. In his opinion, in 1971 the oil industry experienced one of its best moments “with all the concessionaires working full time.”
PDVSA’s effort
Venezuela, according to figures published by specialized sources, during 2021 obtained an average production of around 665,000 barrels per day, to close the month of December with 872,000 barrels per day.
In the months of January and February 2022, production has decreased to “857,000 barrels per day and 845,000 barrels per day, respectively, and it is expected that in March there will also be a slight drop to 825,000 barrels per day.”
Of that daily production, what Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) calls “own effort” is equivalent to “38 % of the total, that is, about 231,000 barrels per day.”
M. Rodríguez
Source: finanzasdigital.com
