PDVSA

CARACAS (IPS) – Central America, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and islands in the eastern Caribbean are receiving more and more oil from Venezuela, while major refineries are planned in South America — at Pernambuco in northeastern Brazil, and at El Aromo, on Ecuador’s Pacific coast.

State oil company Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) has a finger in all these pies. In turn, it has opened the region’s largest oil reserve, the Orinoco Belt, to joint exploitation with other Latin American state-owned oil firms.


PDVSA is spearheading regional energy integration and assisting many of Venezuela’s neighbours, compensated for by the high price of its crude exports, which have averaged 96 dollars a barrel this year, while extraction costs amount to just six or seven dollars a barrel.

For nearly 30 years, PDVSA has cooperated with weaker neighbours and partnered firms in “sister” countries, but the extent, amount and frequency of these practices have multiplied in the last five years. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has been in office for ten years, has accelerated the pace of dozens of regional projects.

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