Chavez Misses $10 Billion a Month Curbing Oil Spending: Energy
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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s reliance on state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA to finance government budgets and social spending is forcing the company to delay investments and lose billions of dollars of export revenue.
PDVSA, as the Caracas-based company is called, planned to produce 5.8 million barrels a day this year, according to a 2007 bond prospectus. Since then, output has remained little changed at around 2.5 million barrels a day, according to the International Energy Agency. The 3.3 million barrel-a-day gap between the five-year business plan and actual result costs the company around $10 billion a month in unrealized revenue at current oil prices.