Once a Cash Cow, Venezuela’s Oil Company Now Verges on Collapse

[thackney]

Once a Cash Cow, Venezuela’s Oil Company Now Verges on Collapse
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/27/world/americas/venezuela-oil-pdvsa.html

A general with no energy experience has been installed as the head of the state oil company. Arrests, firings and desperate emigration have gutted top talent. Oil facilities are crumbling, while production is plummeting.

As the rest of the oil-producing world recovers on the back of stronger energy prices, Venezuela is getting worse, the result of dysfunctional management, rampant corruption and the country’s crippling economic crisis. The deepening troubles at the state oil company, the country’s economic mainstay, threaten to further destabilize a nation and government facing a dire recession, soaring inflation and unbridled crime, as well as food and medicine shortages.

When energy prices started to crater several years ago, Venezuela and other oil-dependent nations suffered in tandem. Now, prices are rising and others in the oil patch are on the mend.

Saudi Arabia’s government is slashing its deficits and reaping increased revenue. Even dysfunctional Libya and Iraq have been pumping and exporting like mad.

Not Venezuela, the country with the largest proven reserves in the world. The state-owned oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, known as Pdvsa, teeters on the brink of collapse, its failures at once a symptom and a cause of the nation’s downward economic spiral....

...Production is falling 20,000 barrels to 50,000 barrels a day month after month and is now at its lowest level in nearly three decades....

[IsailedawayfromFR]

That oil ain't going anywhere.

Somewhere in Venezuela's future it will return with strength.

Right now, it is sad to see people suffering in spite of the country sitting on such wealth.

[thackney]

That oil ain't going anywhere.

How much recoverable oil has become stranded due to mismanagement?

[Bigun]

That oil ain't going anywhere.

Somewhere in Venezuela's future it will return with strength.

Right now, it is sad to see people suffering in spite of the country sitting on such wealth.

Gonna have to get the commies out first!

[IsailedawayfromFR]

How much recoverable oil has become stranded due to mismanagement?

Most of the Venezuelan crude resides in high viscosity deposits in the Orinoco heavy oil basin.  It will not flow and must be assisted by steam or some other thermal recovery method which lowers viscosity in situ.

While mismanagement of a steam flood will lose some incremental reserves, the vast majority of this oil will not be harmed and will remain for some more competent producer or higher oil prices.

The amount of oil in place in the Orinoco is truly staggering and exceeds a trillion barrels.

[Suppressed]

Most of the Venezuelan crude resides in high viscosity deposits in the Orinoco heavy oil basin.  It will not flow and must be assisted by steam or some other thermal recovery method which lowers viscosity in situ.

While mismanagement of a steam flood will lose some incremental reserves, the vast majority of this oil will not be harmed and will remain for some more competent producer or higher oil prices.

The amount of oil in place in the Orinoco is truly staggering and exceeds a trillion barrels.

@IsailedawayfromFR  Thanks for providing that insight. I had the same question as @thackney

[IsailedawayfromFR]

@IsailedawayfromFR  Thanks for providing that insight. I had the same question as @thackney

You're welcome.  The term 'stranded oil' pertains more to individual projects such as discoveries found offshore that may or may not be commercial to develop.  A gas field found far away from sales facilities like an LNG plant or gas pipeline are very common stranded situations.

In reservoir terms, the more appropriate term might be to say instead of 'stranded' to say 'wasted' or maybe 'lost' oil.  I would define these as being oil not realized due to improper reservoir management.  As an example, in a steamflood that is operating long enough to build up a steam front, if steam is prematurely stopped prior to the entire cycling of steam, then oil otherwise extractable would be 'lost' in the reservoir, and unlikely to be recoverable in the future.

Same thing happens when a waterflood bank 'over-runs' and does not sweep as much oil as it otherwise should.

Proper reservoir management can take a very long time.  Waterfloods typically take 15 to 25 years to complete cycles, and steamfloods can take a lot longer.

[Fishrrman]

Brings to mind the Twentieth Century Motors Company from Atlas Shrugged...

[Frank Cannon]

Venezuela’s Oil Company Now Verges on Collapse

Verges on collapse? It's there already.

[thackney]

In reservoir terms, the more appropriate term might be to say instead of 'stranded' to say 'wasted' or maybe 'lost' oil.  I would define these as being oil not realized due to improper reservoir management.  As an example, in a steamflood that is operating long enough to build up a steam front, if steam is prematurely stopped prior to the entire cycling of steam, then oil otherwise extractable would be 'lost' in the reservoir, and unlikely to be recoverable in the future.

Thanks for explaining.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Thanks for explaining.

as long as you keep me on track on power projects and facilities when I stray off somewhere.