At the Wellhead

摘要

The long-term prospects for Venezuela as an oil exporter are focused on the giant complex of oil fields known as the Orinoco Belt, which extends over more than 55,000 square kilometers in the southeastern part of the country and have proven and probable reserves thought to exceed 220 billion barrels. The problem has been that new joint ventures since 2005 between state-owned PDVSA with foreign minority partners to exploit those reserves has not advanced at the hoped-for pace. The initial target for the JV’s was to reach one million b/d by 2013, but production levels have only hit a stunningly low 6,000 b/d. Meanwhile, construction of new upgraders, also known as improvers, needed to make the additional heavy crude transportable has now been put off until 2020. This delay in the business plan has obliged PDVSA to make an abrupt turnabout in its short-term strategy to increase oil output.