Page 8 - LatAmOil Week 07 2021

LatAmOil VENEZUEL A LatAmOil

Venezuela charges PdVSA subsidiary’s

head with selling LPG on black market

VENEZUELAN authorities have reportedly departments of PdVSA Gas and PdVSA,” the
arrested the head of a subsidiary of the national aide told Argus Media. “Based on what we have
oil company (NOC) PdVSA on charges related learned to date, we believe that more senior fig-
to black market sales of LPG. ures in PdVSA are involved.”
Jacob Grey, the head of PdVSA Gas Com- LPG is commonly used as cooking fuel in the
munal, the PdVSA affiliate that distributes res- South American country, with each household
idential gas supplies, was detained and jailed using about two bottles per month on average.
along with several of his senior associates earlier However, supplies have been scarce for some
this month, Argus Media said in a report dated time.
February 16. The arrest occurred after state An official in Venezuela’s Oil Ministry told
investigators discovered an underground LPG Argus Media earlier this week that the discov-
distribution hub at a warehouse in Carabobo ery of the underground sales scheme and the
State, it said. arrests of Grey and other high-ranking PdVSA
So far, none of the persons involved have Gas Communal representatives were not likely
responded to the corruption charges lodged to mitigate the shortages. “[The] entire gas pro-
in the case. The Venezuelan government has duction, stripping, storage and distribution
accused the PdVSA Gas Communal executives infrastructure operated by PdVSA and PdVSA
of making arrangements to divert 10,000 bar- Gas has deteriorated because of a complete lack
rels per day (bpd) of LPG to the black market of preventive maintenance dating since at least
so that it could be transferred into 10-kg bottles 2008,” said the official, who was not named. ™
and sold at $10 each. This is far above the official
subsidised price of $0.02 per 10-kg bottle.
The LPG involved in the illicit sales was alleg-
edly diverted from PdVSA’s cryogenic facility at
Jose, which has a capacity of 200,000 bpd, Argus
Media reported. This facility is currently turn-
ing out only 15,000 bpd of LPG, enough to cover
just one third of Venezuelan residential demand,
and PdVSA Gas Communal was only sending a
third of its production to market, said an aide
to Tarek Willian Saab, the country’s attorney
general.
“Grey was stealing two-thirds of the cry-
ogenic plant’s deficient propane output right
under the noses of the internal security The scheme affected two thirds of Venezuela’s LPG (Photo: Wikimedia)

GUYANA
Guyana trims 2021 oil output target

THE government of Guyana has cut its forecast 120,000 bpd, he said.
for oil output in 2021, Finance Minister Ashni He also pointed out, though, that the target of
Singh has said. 109,000 bpd would represent a rise of 46.7% on
While presenting a draft version of the the figure of about 74,300 bpd reported for 2020.
2021 budget earlier this week, Singh explained Additionally, he noted that the draft budget
that the country’s production target had been was based on the assumption that Brent crude
reduced to 109,000 barrels per day. Georgetown prices would average $43.90 per barrel in 2021.
decided to lower the number because of the This is up by 4% on last year’s figure of about
recurring technical problems that have led Exx- $42.21 per barrel, but it is also well below cur-
onMobil and its partners in the Stabroek project rent Brent prices, which were above $63.50 as of
to let average yields drop from 130,000 bpd to earlier this week.

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 07 18•February•2021