Word: venezuela
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...which spells crisis for OPEC. Since last month oil ministers in Iran and Venezuela - both of which are heavily dependent on oil revenues - have pushed fellow OPEC members to make big enough cuts in production to reverse the plunge in prices; both argued for a cut of two million barrels when they arrived in Vienna on Thursday for OPEC's emergency meeting. OPEC countries set oil production quotas, and their tactic of fixing their combined output has for years hugely influenced world prices, since OPEC's 13 members account for about one-third of the world's total oil supplies...
...energy company Repsol-YPF has entered into a production-sharing agreement with Cupet and is scheduled to start drilling the first real well in the EEZ next year. Other international firms, including Norway's StatoilHidro and India's Oil & Natural Gas Corp., are part of the Repsol-led consortium. Venezuela's state-run Petroleos de Venezuela is considered a lesser player because it has little deep-water drilling experience. (China is also interested but so far only involved in onshore drilling in Cuba.) Cuba is now in important negotiations with Brazil's Petrobras, which just made its own multibillion-barrel...
...geologists estimated that between 5 billion bbl. and 10 billion bbl. of oil lie beneath the waters off Cuba's northwest coast. Suddenly it seemed as though the hemisphere's sole communist nation might finally end its desperate dependence on oil-rich allies like the former Soviet Union and Venezuela - and perhaps even escape its impoverished economic time warp altogether...
Cuba now produces about 60,000 barrels of oil per day (BPD) and consumes more than 150,000 BPD. (It also produces natural gas.) Venezuela makes up the difference by shipping almost 100,000 BPD to Cuba. The University of Miami's Pinon says the more serious issue is refining capacity: even if Cuba has only the low estimate of 5 billion bbl. - which could yield more than 300,000 BPD - it needs Venezuela's investment to upgrade refineries like the Soviet-built plant at Cienfuegos. But plummeting crude prices mean that Chávez may have a lot less...
...heavy gasoline subsidies, he won't help his chances of reelection in a tough presidential race next June. "There is a lot of popular unrest when they cut subsidies or put on gas quotas," says Robert Johnston, Director of Energy for the Eurasia Group in Washington. For similar reasons, Venezuela President Hugo Chavez wants OPEC to cut production by about 1 million barrels a day, warning that his country would face dire economic problems if oil prices continue falling...