Ramirez: Pdvsa cannot be so vulnerable

The appearance of Luis Vierma, Vice-President of Exploration and Production of Venezuelan state oil giant Pdvsa, before the Committee on Comptrollership, National Assembly, unveiled a situation likely to prevent the holding from meeting its crude oil output goal under its Oil Sowing Plan.

On Thursday, Pdvsa CEO and Minister of Energy and Petroleum Rafael Ramirez did not hide the problems they have faced during the two latest biddings for oil rigs. He underscored, however, that in order to understand the situation, people should be aware of the exponential increase in drilling equipment costs.

“We are faced with a deficit of oil rigs worldwide. Oil-associated costs in OPEC countries have climbed 40 percent and offshore rigs are leased for minimum USD 400,000 a day, as high as double compared to 2006. Further, there are the changes we have introduced in Pdvsa’s outsourcing methodology.”

Reference was made to mandatory standardization of equipment requisitions from all Pdvsa districts, expansion of the duration of contracts from two to five years and mandatory inclusion of social plans amounting to 10 percent of the contract total sum. This has been a thorny issue for multinationals, which have forwarded letters to Pdvsa apologizing for not taking part in the two latest oil biddings.

“We have sent people to Houston to look for rigs and we have met with (Brazilian state oil firm) Petrobras facing the same situation.”

el universal.com