Venezuela Co. Reveals Oil Output Shortfall

Venezuela’s state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. revealed that its oil production fell 162,000 barrels a day in 2003 to roughly 2.75 million barrels a day following a devastating strike that year.

PDVSA, as the company is known, previously had said average 2003 output was higher, at about 3 million barrels a day. The smaller figure was listed in a company statement published in Venezuelan newspapers Sunday.

In December 2002, about half of PDVSA’s staff joined a general strike in an effort to force President Hugo Chavez to resign. Loyalists at the company eventually resumed oil production in early 2003, but the company says the strike cost US$12.7 billion (euro10.4 billion) in lost oil sales alone.
Forbes