Page 8 - LatAmOil Week 27 2022

LatAmOil VENEZUEL A LatAmOil

Economists: Higher oil production to drive

Venezuela’s GDP upward by 8.3% this year

VENEZUELA’S GDP is expected to achieve its would have to maintain double-digit growth
fastest rate of growth in the last 15 years in 2022, rates in order to return its economy to the size
largely as a result of rising crude oil production, that it was in 2012.
economists told Bloomberg last week. The most important sign of improvement has
The news agency said last week that its sur- been a rise in oil production, which has climbed
vey of five economists indicated that Vene- back up to 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) after
zuela’s GDP was on track to grow by 8.3% this a steep decline over the last two years. This has
year, up from 1.9% from 2021. This represents helped the country increase exports at a time
an improved outlook, as it had reported after a when crude oil prices have risen above $100 per
conducting a similar survey in December that barrel, thereby increasing its revenues.
GDP growth might amount to 5.2% in 2022. Guillermo Guerrero, strategist at Emfi
The expected uptick is coming in the wake Group, believes that further growth is likely
of a seven-year recession that came to an end in the event that the US government loosens
in 2021. During the recession, which triggered sanctions on the South American country. “Any
hyperinflation and a migration crisis, Venezue- relaxation of oil industry sanctions would give
la’s gross domestic product shrank from $352bn an important boost to growth,” he said in a note
in 2012 to approximately $49bn in 2021. to clients last week. ™
Angel Alvarado, a senior fellow at the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania and founder of the Ven-
ezuelan Finance Observatory, observed that
while there were positive signs, the country has
historically experienced extended periods of
recession. This means that Venezuela is recov-
ering from a crash rather than flourishing, he
argued last week.
“The country that has always done poorly is
now growing. But when we look at recent his-
tory, we see that it’s nothing compared to the lev-
els of recession we’ve had,” he explained during
a presentation.
Alvarado also estimated that Venezuela
might see its GDP grow by 11.5% this year.
Additionally, he suggested that the country Venezuelan crude oil production is now back tup to 700,000 bpd (File Photo)

Unexpected outage forces PdVSA to stop

gasoline production at Cardon refinery

VENEZUELA’S national oil company (NOC) programme for repairs in the reformer’s reac-
PdVSA has halted gasoline production at its tors,” one of the sources said.
second-largest refinery because of unexpected The sources did not say whether any of the
maintenance problems, according to a Reuters Cardon plant’s other units had been affected, but
report. they did report that the reformer was expected
Five unnamed sources with knowledge of to remain offline for 18-21 days. This outage will
the matter told the news agency last week that affect gasoline production because the naphtha
the shutdown was related to an outage at the reformer produces high-octane components for
310,000 barrel per day (bpd) Cardon refinery’s that fuel, they explained.
naphtha reformer. As of press time, PdVSA had not commented
“This is an unplanned maintenance on the matter.

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 26 30•June•2022