VENEZUELAN OIL PRODUCTION: THE EMPEROR IS LOSING

C O N F I D E N T I A L CARACAS 001546 SIPDIS NSC FOR CBARTON ENERGY FOR DPUMPHREY AND ALOCKWOOD TOKYO FOR SFLATT E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/16/2015 TAGS: EPET VE SUBJECT: VENEZUELAN OIL PRODUCTION: THE EMPEROR IS LOSING HIS CLOTHES Classified By: Acting Economic Counselor Darnall Steuart; for reasons 1 .4 (b) and (d) -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) The decline in Venezuelan oil production, long predicted by industry observers, has become public as apparent corruption and diversion of funds and alleged sabotage at state oil company PDVSA became the center of debate in early May. According to a local international oil services company, Venezuela's oil production peaked at about 2.7 million barrels of daily oil production in early 2005 after the standstill of the strike in 2002-2003. A local university think tank estimates that national production (including the relatively well run eastern production area) is continuing to decline and could reach as low as 2-2.2 million b/d by the end of 2005. End Summary. -------------- BACKGROUND -------------- ¶2. (C) In January 2004, we reported in reftel,"while some believe that Venezuela's 2004 production can be expected to remain roughly in the 2.5-2.6 million b/d range where it is generally believed to be at the current time, there are others who believe that, in the absence of significant investment either on the part of PDVSA itself or the international oil companies, Venezuelan production could drop to as little as 2.0-2.2 million b/d by the end of 2004." It now appears that Venezuelan production may have peaked in early 2005 and that the long predicted decline has become more public. -------------- GOV STILL ON MESSAGE -------------- ¶3. (C) Despite President Chavez's May 3 acknowledgement of a 100,000 production shortfall in the west, some days later Minister of Energy and Petroleum/PDVSA President Rafael Ramirez___ reiterated the claim that Venezuela is producing 3.3 million b/d. In remarks to the press, Ramirez___ asserted that the Venezuelan oil industry is under attack by a disinformation campaign that seeks to portray an industry in chaos. For months Ramirez___ and other senior GOV officials have cited a total production number ranging anywhere between 3.0-3.3 million b/d and reiterated that PDVSA will increase production to 3.4 million b/d by the end of 2005 in compliance with its 2004-2009 business plan. Private industry observers have been skeptical about a 3 million b/d total for Venezuelan production. -------------- PRODUCTION INCREASED -------------- ¶4. (C) A senior manager of Schlumberger, a leading international oil services company, informed econoff in March that his company believed that Venezuela's oil production had grown by eight percent since July 2004. At that time, Schlumberger's internal production estimates (broken down between PDVSA and the international oil companies (IOCs) were as follows: PDVSA IOCs Total -------------- -------------- -------------- 000 b/d Eastern Venezuela 845 305 1150 Western Venezuela 650 215 865 Barinas 90 0 90 -------------- -------------- -------------- 1585 520 2105 To this total, Schlumberger added an estimated 593,000 b/d of production from the four facilities that upgrade the extra-heavy crude of Venezuela's Orinoco heavy oil belt, for a total of approximately 2.7 million b/d. ¶5. (C) According to Schlumberger, by the end of November 2004 production grew by 90,000 b/d because of increased field production associated with the Hamaca project, the fourth and last of the exra-heavy oil Strategic Associations whose upgrader came on line in September. By January 2005, Schlumberger believes that production had grown another 70,000 b/d. The company attributed 10,000 b/d of that increase to added production from Barinas; another 15,000 b/d to increased production from the Ceuta-Tomoporo fields south of Lake Maracaibo in western Venezuela; and the rest from small incremental gains, primarily by the IOCs. The primary discrepancy between the official statistic of 3.0-3.3 million b/d and private sector estimates of 2.5-2.7 million b/d such as Schlumberger's lies in western Venezuela where, until Chavez's May 3 statement, the GOV had consistently claimed that production had returned to pre-strike levels (1.2 million b/d) in 2003. -------------- TROUBLED WESTERN VENEZUELA -------------- ¶6. (C) Anecdotal information from western Venezuela, however, has painted a very different picture. Econoff has periodically discussed operations in the west with representatives of two units of the Wood Group, a British services company that has a major presence there. Wood Group units are involved in two activites that provide direct evidence of the health of PDVSA production activities: one unit installs and services the gas turbines needed to provide gas lift for oil production while another major unit provides integrated services to process and inject water produced with the oil. Under this contract, the Wood Group unit SIMCO is in charge of the requirements of water injection in Lake Maracaibo in the Lagomar, Lagotreco, Lagocinco, Lagomedio and the South Center Lake areas. SIMCO manages two onshore treatment plants at Punta de Palmas and Bachaquero as well as some 129 structures in the lake. ¶7. (C) Wood Group senior managers have consistently mirrored Schlumberger's estimate, saying that western production remained stagnant at around 850,000 b/d. They also noted, however, that PDVSA is in "absolute chaos." This reflects, they said, not just the extreme politicization of the west after the strike but also the fact that Felix Rodriguez continued to run the western operations out of Caracas. A Chavez stalwart, Rodriguez was named to manage PDVSA's western production area after the December 2002-February 2003 strike. In early 2004, he was named as Vice President for Exploration and Production where he took a hard line with respect to minimizing the prospective IOC role in Venezuela. According to Wood Group and other observers, Rodriguez continued, in all but name, to run PDVSA's operations in the west. Rodriguez was named President of CITGO in the year-end PDVSA board changes. He is rumored to have had a financial interest in at least one of the companies that was supplying contract personnel to PDVSA in the west. ¶8. (C) A corruption scandal hit the west in February 2005 and a number of managers were fired. Wood group sources note that a number of the managers have been cleared and reinstated but the incident caused panic and managers were afraid to make decisions. Wood Group Vice President Neil Harvey told econoff that a PDVSA team from western Venezuela had admitted to a Wood Group team that there are &dreadful problems8 in western Venezuelan operations, including a lack of management expertise, technical capabilities etc. The PDVSA team asked the Wood Group if it would be able to assist in the development of a mobile gas compression center. After that meeting, however, PDVSA said the project would have to go to a public bid. Harvey described the situation as "an ever spiraling circle of doom." ¶9. (C) Harvey also informed econoff in early April that SIMCO, which operates a water treatment plant in Bachaquero, had been discussing with PDVSA the operation of its own water plants in the area. Harvey said PDVSA had been unable to get the plants to work. And while SIMCO,s plant could handle 300,000 b/d of water, its injection pipeline could only handle 150,000 b/d. Harvey said that PDVSA's water production had grown to such a degree that PDVSA was sending the untreated water (i.e., water with hydrocarbon impurities) straight into the lake in what Harvey described as a &river8 running parallel to the SIMCO plant. While this was evidence of yet another environmental disaster for Lake Maracaibo, it could also be evidence that PDVSA's oil production is declining. -------------- DOOM STRIKES? -------------- ¶10. (C) On May 18, economist Orlando Ochoa provided econoff the most recent findings by a group from the Center for the Development of Oil Technology associated with Caracas' Simon Bolivar University. This group believes that PDVSA's own production in western Venezuela may have dropped to as low as 330,000 b/d. They assert that western production dropped 10 percent between March and April. If true, this would yield a total production number for the region of about 600,000 b/d. Most seriously, the Center believes that national production (including the relatively well run eastern production area) is continuing to decline and could reach as low as 2-2.2 million b/d by the end of 2005. As proof of these assertions, said Ochoa, the Center pointed to the national oil to water production ratio which they put at 4 barrels of water to one barrel of oil. The ratio is actually 6 to 1 in the west and 1 1/2 barrels to one barrel of oil in the east. ¶11. (C) Ochoa noted that industry observers believe PDVSA is struggling to increase production in eastern Venezuela at the risk of damaging the reservoirs. In fact, a U.S. executive whose company provides critical gas compression and injection services in eastern Venezuela, told econoff a week ago that he had been forbidden by PDVSA to take one of his plants down for scheduled servicing. He also recounted that he had been told that even the office staff in PDVSA's Maturin operations have been ordered to work from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm until oil production is increased. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶12. (C) In an unusual move, President Chavez and others in the government complained publicly that there had been sabotage - USG supported - of PDVSA production in western Venezuela. The GOV also ordered military units (including reservists) to guard PDVSA facilities. At the same time, others in the MVR surfaced complaints about corruption in PDVSA - unusual given the MVR's interest in portraying PDVSA as an effective engine of the revolution. ¶13. (C) In January 2004, we commented that PDVSA might yet be able to arrest Venezuela's production decline if it moved ahead quickly with substantial investment in maintenance of existing projects and development of new ones. The continuing chaos in the company, however, has prevented PDVSA from moving ahead with the investment necessary to forestall the hard fact that Venezuela's production will decline by 20 to 25 percent on an annual basis. Figures such as the Simon Bolivar group and former PDVSA President Luis Giusti have recently said that PDVSA must immediately invest anywhere from $7 to $10 billion to turn this situation around. A number of our contacts believe that company managers are incapable of making the necessary investment decisions and that PDVSA may well have reached a point where it is impossible to invest fast enough to arrest the decline. Perhaps because of this, the GOV's response has been to pressure the IOCs that operate in Venezuela for changes in their fiscal regimes. Brownfield NNNN 2005CARACA01546 - CONFIDENTIAL