Reuters/Porlamar, Venezuela
Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafel Ramirez yesterday lowered the South American Opec member’s 2015 oil capacity growth targets by over 13%.
Ramirez said oil capacity should reach 4.25mn barrels per day (mbd) by 2015, compared with previous forecasts of 4.9mbd, from current production of 3mbd.
“At the moment, we have an annual production of 3mbd. And we have an investment plan to create sufficient capacity to produce 4.25mbd towards 2015,” he said in a speech opening an oil conference on the island of Margarita.
He added that capacity should rise to 6.862mbd by 2021, largely because of development of the Orinoco belt.
Analysts do not, however, share the government’s optimism, saying steep declines at older fields combined with obstacles to new heavy crude development could keep production flat for years to come.
Venezuela has announced a raft of new projects in the Orinoco heavy oil belt, but analysts are nervous about the inexperience of major partners like Russia and China.
State oil company PDVSA and the government had projected an average production of 3.17mbd for 2009, above Ramirez’s figure of 3mbd.
Independent estimates, including by the US Energy Information Administration and the International Energy Agency, see production at nearer 2.2mbd.
Speaking to reporters after his speech, Ramirez said PDVSA was considering another bond issue “in the short-term” after two others earlier this year. Investors are worried at a glut of debt offer by Venezuela.
The minister also revealed that PDVSA would pay an initial $300mn within 30 days for participation in a refinery project with Brazil’s Petrobras.
Petrobras and PDVSA agreed the deal last week to construct and operate the 230,000bpd Abreu e Lima refinery in Brazil’s Pernambuco state.
On natural gas, Ramirez said PDVSA would take offers at the end of the year to develop a huge offshore project, Mariscal Sucre, in the east. Begun in the 1980s, the project has not yet sold a molecule of gas despite reserves of 14.7tn cubic feet (tcf).
Ramirez said another offshore gas project with Russia’s Gazprom had similar prospects to a recent major find with Repsol YPF. Repsol says that site has reserves of up to 7.8tcf of gas, which would be the largest such discovery in Venezuela. |
