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Maduro Vows To Double Oil Production With Help From OPEC

By Irina Slav - May 25, 2018, 11:00 AM CDT

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has promised to start increasing the crisis-stricken country's oil production during his second six-year term in office.

AFP reports that during his inauguration speech, Maduro said he will seek the help of OPEC to double Venezuela's oil production, which is currently at 70-year lows and much below its production quota under the OPEC cut agreement. Maduro said the current production rate-about 1.5 million bpd-would need to increase by 1 million barrels daily by the end of this year.

Further in his speech, Maduro said that Venezuela will defeat the U.S. sanctions and its economy will reverse its course to a more positive one, admitting, however, that it will be a tough job because of the sanctions and the ruinous state of its oil industry.

"I cannot deceive anyone, they are going to create serious difficulties for us, painful difficulties, that we will face gradually -- we will defeat them. Trump's sanctions will be nullified and defeated," Maduro said.

Venezuela has been teetering on the brink of collapse for months now, and the thing that could push it over the edge would be further sanctions from the U.S, whether banning Venezuelan oil exports to Gulf Coast refineries or U.S. light crude exports to Venezuela, which it needs to mix its heavy crude with lighter grades to make it marketable.

President Trump has made it clear that both those options are on the table as he seeks to punish the Caracas regime.

If the United States were to slap sanctions on Venezuela's oil industry, it could accelerate its already swift decline. In April, Venezuela lost 41,700 bpd of oil production and its output averaged 1.436 million bpd, according to OPEC's secondary sources. This compares to average oil production of 2.154 million bpd for 2016 and to 1.911 million bpd for 2017, and was the lowest production level since 1949.

By Irina Slav For Oilprice.com

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Irina Slav

Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry. More

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Comments

  • Downy - 25th May 2018 at 11:31am:
    Maduro does not have a work force. He pays $2/month.
  • Ken Martin - 25th May 2018 at 1:19pm:
    Why would OPEC help Venezuela restore their production volumes? All that would do is add more oil onto the world market at a time when OPEC has been diligently focused on restraining supplies. Just More BS from Mr Maduro.
  • John Scior - 25th May 2018 at 2:53pm:
    It seems to be contrary to logic for OPEC members to help increase the production of one of their competitors in the market. There simply seems to be no one behind the curtain to help them out of this situation. The only thing that makes sense is an overthrow of the government. The current government has put under arrest executives from some of the few remaining oil companies there. They have replaced competent workers with ones from the military, ( not that the military is incompetent just that extracting oil does not seem to have the same skill set as conducting military operations ) A diabolical entity could hardly do worse than the current policies of the government. Considering Venezuela defaults on its obligations and brings harm to everyone who in the past provided them with assistance, it would be sheer folly for OPEC members or for that matter ANYONE to come to the aid of this incompetent regime.
  • Bob the sponge - 26th May 2018 at 1:13am:
    I wonder how he is supposed to beat trump's administration since nobody want his oil, neither the opec nor the us, nobody can work for nothing and no countries will sell them steel if they don't have money for that.