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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...
...likely to account for a significant share of global production anytime soon. Almost everybody agrees that the pumping of conventionally sourced oil outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has already peaked or will peak soon, a reality that even discoveries like the recent 8 billion-bbl. find off the coast of Brazil can't alter because production from so many existing fields is declining...
...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...