Venezuelan oil output recovery stalls-opposition

www.forbes.com Reuters, 01.27.03, 8:22 AM ET

CARACAS, Venezuela, (Reuters) - Striking Venezuelan oil workers said crude output fell slightly Monday, stalling after a three-week recovery that took flows to almost a million barrels per day, or 30 percent of pre-strike levels.

Crude output fell 20,000 bpd to 966,000 bpd, 29 percent of pre-strike levels, according to a daily oil industry report by anti-government strikers.

The government, which has used troops and replacement crews to break the eight-week-old strike, has consistently held higher estimates for crude output, pegging it at 1.32 million bpd on Sunday.

"Most of the output is in the east of the country, in northern Monagas, where reservoirs are youngest and where extraction is relatively easy and requires little technical work," said the report by strikers, many of whom occupied senior positions in state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela.

"This area has natural flow due to the well conditions... a situation which is totally different in the west, where wells require large amounts of work," it added.

The report said strike breakers were putting extra oil into existing contracts, but that its sales and marketing operation was still destroyed by the strike.

"This makes us think that the crude could be being stored," the report said.

The government has said that 75 percent of blue-collar workers have already returned to work.

Exports rose sharply last week from very low levels to near 700,000 bpd, according to ship agents and port authorities, but they were still at just 25 percent of pre-strike levels.

The anti-government strikers, who are seeking to force President Hugo Chavez to resign and call early elections, said 80 percent of oil workers were observing the strike in the east.