Recent from talks
PDVSA
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
PDVSA
Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (acronym PDVSA, Spanish pronunciation: [peðeˈβesa], English: Petroleum of Venezuela) is the Venezuelan state-owned oil and natural gas company. It has activities in exploration, production, refining and exporting oil as well as exploration and production of natural gas. Since its founding on January 1, 1976, with the nationalization of the Venezuelan oil industry, PDVSA has dominated the oil industry of Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter.
Oil reserves in Venezuela are the largest in the world and the state-owned PDVSA provides the government of Venezuela with substantial funding resources. Following the Bolivarian Revolution, PDVSA was mainly used as a vital source of income for the Venezuelan government. Profits were also used to assist the presidency, with funds directed towards allies of the Venezuelan government. With PDVSA focusing on political projects instead of oil production, mechanical and technical statuses deteriorated while employee expertise was removed following thousands of politically motivated firings. Incompetence within the company has led to serious inefficiencies and accidents and to endemic corruption; at least US$11 billion was stolen between 2004 and 2015. Jorge Giordani, minister of planning until in 2014, estimates that $300 billion was simply stolen. In 2018, thousands of workers left PDVSA, especially after the company was put under military control.
As of 2003, Venezuela had 77.5 billion barrels (1.232×1010 m3) of conventional oil reserves according to PDVSA figures, the largest in the Western Hemisphere and making up approximately half the total. This puts Venezuela as fifth in the world in proven reserves of conventional oil. By also including an estimated 235 billion barrels (3.74×1010 m3) of tar-like extra heavy crude oil in the Orinoco Belt region, Venezuela claims to hold the largest hydrocarbon reserves in the world. Venezuela also has 150 trillion cubic feet (4.2×1012 m3) of natural gas reserves. The crude oil PDVSA extracts from the Orinoco is refined into a fuel eponymously named 'Orimulsion'.
PDVSA has a production capacity, including the strategic associations and operating agreements, of 4 million barrels (640,000 m3) per day (600,000 m3). Officials say production is around 3.3 million barrels per day (520,000 m3/d) although most secondary sources such as OPEC and the EIA put Venezuela's output at least 500,000 barrels per day (79,000 m3/d) lower.
During the presidency of Hugo Chávez the organization's payroll tripled, while oil production fell steeply, a drop of 700,000 barrels per day. Soaring oil prices began in 2002 and peaked in 2008 at $147 per barrel.
In 2002, many PDVSA employees went on strike against the policies of Chávez, who in response fired over 19,000 workers from the company. As of 2014, Intevep, the research and development arm of PDVSA, reportedly lost 80% of its workers, severely damaging PDVSA's ability to innovate and compete in the global petroleum market. PDVSA saw stagnant growth in the following era which was defined by a boom in oil prices. Between 2002 and 2012, incapacitating injuries to employees rose from 1.8 per million man hours to 6.2, extremely high compared to 0.6 per million man hours for Pemex in 2012, highlighting the company's struggle to optimize. Several former PDVSA employees moved to Alberta, where the oil consistency was similar to that of the Orinoco. As a result, the number of Venezuelans in Alberta has risen from 465 in 2001 to 3,860 in 2011. Other PDVSA workers migrated to Colombia, joined Ecopetrol, and were credited with helping the company attain huge profits throughout the 2010s.
In 2006, Rafael Ramírez, the energy minister, gave PDVSA workers a choice: Support President Hugo Chávez, or lose their jobs. The minister also said: "PDVSA is red [the color identified with Chávez's political party], red from top to bottom". Chávez defended Ramírez, saying that public workers should back the "revolution". He added that "PDVSA's workers are with this revolution, and those who aren't should go somewhere else. Go to Miami". In 2012, PDVSA focused in hiring only supporters of the president and PDVSA revenue was used to fund Venezuela's socialist "revolution".
Under the presidency of Carlos Andrés Pérez, whose economic plan, "La Gran Venezuela", called for the nationalization of the oil industry, Venezuela officially nationalized its oil industry on 1 January 1976 at the site of Zumaque oilwell 1 (Mene Grande). This was the birth of Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA). All foreign oil companies that once did business in Venezuela were replaced by Venezuelan companies, such as Lagoven (Standard Oil), Maraven (Shell), and Llanoven (Mobil). Each of the former concessionaires was simply substituted by a new 'national' oil company, which maintained the structures and functions of its multi-national corporation (MNC) predecessor. With the 1976 nationalization, each previous multinational operator was converted into an affiliate of PDVSA; these affiliates were grouped into an administrative structure underneath both PDVSA and the Venezuelan Ministry of Energy. With this absorption, PDVSA became the employer of engineers with comprehensive technical training from the old multinational corporations and promptly took advantage of their newfound expertise. Within 25 years of nationalization, PDVSA would become the largest company in Latin America and the tenth most profitable in the world. In that 25-year span they went from 18 billion barrels to over 80 billion barrels worth of oil reserves, with a similar increase in production capacity.
Hub AI
PDVSA AI simulator
(@PDVSA_simulator)
PDVSA
Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (acronym PDVSA, Spanish pronunciation: [peðeˈβesa], English: Petroleum of Venezuela) is the Venezuelan state-owned oil and natural gas company. It has activities in exploration, production, refining and exporting oil as well as exploration and production of natural gas. Since its founding on January 1, 1976, with the nationalization of the Venezuelan oil industry, PDVSA has dominated the oil industry of Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter.
Oil reserves in Venezuela are the largest in the world and the state-owned PDVSA provides the government of Venezuela with substantial funding resources. Following the Bolivarian Revolution, PDVSA was mainly used as a vital source of income for the Venezuelan government. Profits were also used to assist the presidency, with funds directed towards allies of the Venezuelan government. With PDVSA focusing on political projects instead of oil production, mechanical and technical statuses deteriorated while employee expertise was removed following thousands of politically motivated firings. Incompetence within the company has led to serious inefficiencies and accidents and to endemic corruption; at least US$11 billion was stolen between 2004 and 2015. Jorge Giordani, minister of planning until in 2014, estimates that $300 billion was simply stolen. In 2018, thousands of workers left PDVSA, especially after the company was put under military control.
As of 2003, Venezuela had 77.5 billion barrels (1.232×1010 m3) of conventional oil reserves according to PDVSA figures, the largest in the Western Hemisphere and making up approximately half the total. This puts Venezuela as fifth in the world in proven reserves of conventional oil. By also including an estimated 235 billion barrels (3.74×1010 m3) of tar-like extra heavy crude oil in the Orinoco Belt region, Venezuela claims to hold the largest hydrocarbon reserves in the world. Venezuela also has 150 trillion cubic feet (4.2×1012 m3) of natural gas reserves. The crude oil PDVSA extracts from the Orinoco is refined into a fuel eponymously named 'Orimulsion'.
PDVSA has a production capacity, including the strategic associations and operating agreements, of 4 million barrels (640,000 m3) per day (600,000 m3). Officials say production is around 3.3 million barrels per day (520,000 m3/d) although most secondary sources such as OPEC and the EIA put Venezuela's output at least 500,000 barrels per day (79,000 m3/d) lower.
During the presidency of Hugo Chávez the organization's payroll tripled, while oil production fell steeply, a drop of 700,000 barrels per day. Soaring oil prices began in 2002 and peaked in 2008 at $147 per barrel.
In 2002, many PDVSA employees went on strike against the policies of Chávez, who in response fired over 19,000 workers from the company. As of 2014, Intevep, the research and development arm of PDVSA, reportedly lost 80% of its workers, severely damaging PDVSA's ability to innovate and compete in the global petroleum market. PDVSA saw stagnant growth in the following era which was defined by a boom in oil prices. Between 2002 and 2012, incapacitating injuries to employees rose from 1.8 per million man hours to 6.2, extremely high compared to 0.6 per million man hours for Pemex in 2012, highlighting the company's struggle to optimize. Several former PDVSA employees moved to Alberta, where the oil consistency was similar to that of the Orinoco. As a result, the number of Venezuelans in Alberta has risen from 465 in 2001 to 3,860 in 2011. Other PDVSA workers migrated to Colombia, joined Ecopetrol, and were credited with helping the company attain huge profits throughout the 2010s.
In 2006, Rafael Ramírez, the energy minister, gave PDVSA workers a choice: Support President Hugo Chávez, or lose their jobs. The minister also said: "PDVSA is red [the color identified with Chávez's political party], red from top to bottom". Chávez defended Ramírez, saying that public workers should back the "revolution". He added that "PDVSA's workers are with this revolution, and those who aren't should go somewhere else. Go to Miami". In 2012, PDVSA focused in hiring only supporters of the president and PDVSA revenue was used to fund Venezuela's socialist "revolution".
Under the presidency of Carlos Andrés Pérez, whose economic plan, "La Gran Venezuela", called for the nationalization of the oil industry, Venezuela officially nationalized its oil industry on 1 January 1976 at the site of Zumaque oilwell 1 (Mene Grande). This was the birth of Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA). All foreign oil companies that once did business in Venezuela were replaced by Venezuelan companies, such as Lagoven (Standard Oil), Maraven (Shell), and Llanoven (Mobil). Each of the former concessionaires was simply substituted by a new 'national' oil company, which maintained the structures and functions of its multi-national corporation (MNC) predecessor. With the 1976 nationalization, each previous multinational operator was converted into an affiliate of PDVSA; these affiliates were grouped into an administrative structure underneath both PDVSA and the Venezuelan Ministry of Energy. With this absorption, PDVSA became the employer of engineers with comprehensive technical training from the old multinational corporations and promptly took advantage of their newfound expertise. Within 25 years of nationalization, PDVSA would become the largest company in Latin America and the tenth most profitable in the world. In that 25-year span they went from 18 billion barrels to over 80 billion barrels worth of oil reserves, with a similar increase in production capacity.