Word: bbl
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...world's largest oil-refinery complex sits on an arid peninsula off the western coast of Venezuela. The Paraguaná facility processes more than 700,000 bbl. of crude each day for the state-owned oil monopoly, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), while tankers line up on the Caribbean horizon to ship it around the world. Towering burn-off pipes, as loud as jet engines, shoot flames above giant posters of President Hugo Chávez. His fist raised, he roars, "Of course...
...question is, Does he really want to? Last year the government announced a $280 million plan to upgrade Paraguaná and increase its capacity to process Venezuela's abundant heavy crude from 50,000 bbl. to 130,000 bbl. per day. But workers say they have yet to see the project move ahead, and some complain the refineries are underperforming. "It's precarious," says a veteran supervisor. "The plant isn't living up to its original design because [PDVSA doesn't] want to cover the costs...
...this good or bad for Venezuela and the U.S.? The answer is yes. As oil nears a once unthinkable $100 a bbl., Chávez can afford to delay costly drilling and refining expansions like Paraguaná's and spend that money on socialist programs and other political pursuits. In a bravado performance at a Nov. 18 meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Chávez and his new best friend, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, mocked the U.S. and blamed the weak dollar, not Venezuelan production capacity, for the high price of oil. "The fall of the dollar...
...Middle East. In the 1990s, a more U.S.-friendly PDVSA ambitiously raised output (even defying its OPEC quota) to earn revenue for new drilling projects. But when Chávez and his anti-U.S. agenda took office in February 1999, prices were languishing at about $10 a bbl.--so the former paratroop commander campaigned to revive OPEC, persuading the cartel to rein in production to boost prices. The effort paid off when the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq shook oil markets and prices began their awesome ascent. The spike also helped Chávez recover from a reckless and devastating...
...book Twilight in the Desert, energy-industry investment banker Matt Simmons opened up a still raging debate over whether Saudi Arabia, OPEC's top producer, really can pump much more oil than it does now. Since the book appeared, Saudi output has dropped from 9.6 million bbl. a day to 8.6 million, despite rising prices...