Word: chã
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...experts say Venezuelan production is slipping and Ch??vez's industry policy for the long term is risky. Venezuela, like Mexico and Iran, needs reinvestment and foreign investment to keep its $100 billion industry in prime condition. But with China's and India's demand for crude inspiring projections for exponential growth and the U.S.'s determination to remain a slave to oil, the oil industry may well have hit a point when the short term is the long term--every barrel not pumped today will be worth more tomorrow. "The Venezuelans are investing as much as they want...
Venezuela B.C.--before Ch??vez--could usually be relied on to do that, especially when things got dicey in the 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 Ch??vez 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...
...less certain that PDVSA really recovered. Before the strike, Venezuela pumped more than 3 million bbl. of oil a day (m.b.d.). Ch??vez and his loyal Energy Minister, Rafael Ramírez, who is also PDVSA's president, say they're back to 3.2 m.b.d., but even OPEC says Venezuela's output is 2.4 m.b.d. PDVSA's exploration and production vice president, Luis Vierma, warned last July of an "operational emergency" because of a lack of drilling rigs. In recent years, there has been a troubling string of accidents; and oil corruption, the blight that Ch??vez vowed to eradicate, became...
Venezuela may be sitting atop one of the world's largest oil deposits--Ch??vez claims there are more than 200 billion bbl. in the Orinoco Belt, which, if true, is nearly 10 times as many proven reserves as the U.S. has. But most of the stuff is extra-heavy crude. Tapping and processing that tarlike oil require billions in investment. Analysts say PDVSA has been slow to start those projects, including joint stakes with China's CNPC, Brazil's Petrobras and Iran's Petropars in southeastern Venezuela...
Then, to complicate matters, Ch??vez mandated this year that the state own a majority stake in heavy-oil developments. Two major investors, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, walked away, taking critical technology with them. Abandoning its Petrozuata and Hamaca heavy-oil ventures, plus an offshore project, cost Conoco $4.5 billion in impairment charges. The French oil corporation Total signed a deal earlier this month to help fill the void. Still, Venezuela's output "is declining," says Rafael Quiroz, an oil economist at Venezuela's Central University. "If it dips below 2.1 m.b.d. ... it could bankrupt the industry...