Venezuela to Boost Oil, Gas, Refining, Build Own Rigs

Venezuela plans to boost its oil and gas production, refining and reserves and ship more oil to China, an executive at state-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA said.

Venezuela will pump 3.5 million barrels a day of oil this year and 6.8 million barrels a day in 2021, said Luis Vierma, PDVSA’s vice president of exploration and production. Its capital expenditure will total about $17 billion this year and $245 billion in coming years through to 2021.
“There are no rigs available around the world,” Vierma said at the World National Oil Companies conference in London today. “For that reason we are going to build our own rigs.” A tanker fleet will help the nation “capture markets in Asia,” he said.

PDVSA is expanding cooperation with China in rig construction, field services and personnel training, Vierma said. The company wants to build a fleet of 47 tankers to ship as much as 1 million barrels a day of its oil to China, where it already sends about 300,000 barrels a day, he said.

The state company plans to raise natural gas production to 17.3 billion cubic feet a day in 2012, from 7.7 billion cubic feet a day this year. Oil refining capacity is forecast to rise to 5.5 million barrels a day in 2021 from 3.2 million barrels a day this year, he said.

Bloomberg