Venezuelan exports to the U.S. have declined significantly during the last 10 years
Within the last three months two events in the international
oil industry illustrate the diverging paths of two important oil producing countries.
One, the United States, has been a net importer for many years, on occasions
dangerously dependent on foreign oil. During the last six years this dependency has
been decreasing rapidly due to the oil shale and shale gas production boom.
Last July 30 an
oil tanker loaded a cargo of condensate, or ultra-light oil, the first such
export from the United States since the easing of a 40-year-old ban on exports,
the result of the 1973 Arab Oil embargo. The tanker, owned by BW Group, docked at the Galveston terminal
in Texas and will load just over 400,000 barrels of condensate bound for Asia.
Hours ago the first cargo of Saharan crude bound for Venezuela as part
of a new deal between state-owned PDVSA and Algeria's Sonatrach loaded on the
tanker Carabobo VLCC and is now sailing
to Venezuela. PDVSA is now forced to bring Saharan oil from Algeria to use both as a diluent for its
heavy crude production in the Orinoco Belt and as feedstock to restart the
shuttered lubricants plant at the Curacao refinery. This is the
first regular crude oil imports by PDVSA since the company was created, almost
40 years ago.
One net oil importer, the United States has now
become an oil exporter. A net oil exporter for almost a century, Venezuela, has
now become an oil importer. Why this has happened is a long story but it can be
summarized as follows: while U.S. ingenuity and initiative has allowed the
country to increase oil and gas production dramatically, Venezuelan political corruption
and ineptitude have generated chaos in the Venezuelan oil company, now highly
in debt and with a production decline of some 600,000 barrels per day less than
15 years ago.
Dickens would agree that for the U.S. oil industry
it is the best of times, but for the Venezuelan oil industry it is the worst of
times.
ResponderEliminarGustavo,
Even though it is correct to say that, on a comparative basis, these are "the best of times" for the U. S. oil industry, I can assure you that here in Lafayette, Louisiana the oilmen are chomping at the bit to develop a number of fields in the Gulf of Mexico that are just hanging like ripe fruit ready to be picked. This is particularly true of the deepwater Lower Tertiary formations that abut Chevron's Walker Ridge (a.k.a. "Bigfoot") project, but numerous others nearby as well. And on top of that they have hopeful designs on reclamation projects for plays in numerous offshore fields closer to the coast where production has either fallen or ended, but which still offer very lucrative prospects for development.
But the Obama administration continues to stonewall the requests for drilling permits on federal lands offshore that have the potential to not only send U. S. production skyrocketing upwards, but provide an economic boost as well.
With all that having been said, you do make a very good point about the sadness of the collapse of the oil industry in Venezuela. Bureaucrats running oil production will do it every time.
While the Oil production in the USA is increasing, in Venezuela, the illegitimate regime hires more oil workers to produce less, which is the recipe to bring an other wise productive company into a inefficient one. Chavistas sure will break PDVSA so they can front money to castro, Ortega, Evo, the Kitchner lady and the rest of blood sucking insects who have drain Venezuela of its main source of income. What a shame.
ResponderEliminar