(Energy Analytics Institute, Aaron Simonsky, 18.May.2018) – Venezuela’s oil production continues to fall, and further declines are anticipated due to a number of problems at state oil company PDVSA, according to a report by Caracas Capital Markets.
“Venezuela’s oil production has now fallen from 3.5 million barrels per day when Hugo Chavez was elected in 1998 to 1.436 bpd last month. Instead of going up to 6-8mm bpd where Venezuela’s oil production should have been by 2008, Venezuela’s oil production has returned to the level it first achieved in 1949,” wrote Russ Dallen, Managing Director at Caracas Capital Markets, in a report last week to clients.
Dallen, a bond trader, further said: “We haven’t yet fallen back to 1948 levels, but we anticipate that we will return to 1948 this month, when Venezuela was producing 1.339 million bpd. By 1950, Caracas was producing 1.497 million bpd — even more than it is currently producing.”
The U.S. is now exporting over 1.6 million barrels of crude oil per day – more than all of Venezuela’s total production, according to Dallen who wanted to “put Venezuela’s disastrous fall in oil production to 1.436 million bpd in perspective.”
Further declines in Venezuela’s oil production are expected due to a number of problems that continue to stymie PDVSA, wrote Dallen.
***