Venezuela's oil production slid for an eighth consecutive month in December, a Bloomberg survey showed, as delays obtaining external financing hamper efforts by Petroleos de Venezuela SA to arrest production declines.Venezuela, Latin America's largest oil producer and exporter, produced 2.45 million barrels a day in December, down 235,000 barrels from November, according to a Bloomberg survey of oil companies, producers and analysts.Monthly output has been falling since April, the survey showed.
PDVSA's ability to offset output declines at mature fields and invest in new developments is slowed by the state-run producer's increasing financial commitments with the Venezuelan government coupled with delays obtaining financing from partners, said Carlos Rossi, president of Caracas-based EnergyNomics, in a telephone interview on December 31.
"The economic situation in Venezuela is very bad and the non-petroleum sector is in desperate need of dollars, causing PDVSA to have to dedicate more money to the Venezuelan Central Bank," said Rossi, who is also a former petroleum economist with the Caracas-based Venezuelan Hydrocarbon Association.Venezuela, a founding member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, holds the world's largest oil reserves.
The country expects to increase production to six million barrels a day by the end of 2019, of which four million will come from the Orinoco heavy-oil belt, PDVSA has said.