Venezuela's oil exports declined 16 percent to 2.17 million barrels per day in February compared with January, the Opec member's Energy Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. South America's biggest oil producer also imported almost 50,000 bpd of crude and oil products during the same period. "From this month on, we shall no longer be commissioning or publishing export/import or domestic market certificates," the ministry said in its report.
Sources at the ministry could not immediately elaborate. Venezuela's oil data had been certified by Inspectorate, the commodity inspection branch of French company Bureau Veritas. Venezuela has suffered a number of accidents and planned maintenance stoppages across its refinery network in recent months, meaning that the country has had to import some oil, mostly petroleum products, to feed local demand.
Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said on Sunday Venezuela aimed to boost overall oil production by two-thirds to 4.5 million or 5 million bpd over the next three years. President Hugo Chavez's government said this month oil production had fallen last year to its lowest level since a months-long strike froze output in 2002.
Venezuela sits on some of the largest oil reserves in the world. But several factors, including lingering Opec output cuts, bad weather and low investment by state oil company PDVSA have contributed to falling production in the past two years. A wave of expropriations also has crimped production, with PDVSA struggling to take on field and drilling services that were previously carried out by private companies. Oil sales provide 95 percent of the nation's export revenue, so declining output is a headache for Chavez, who uses the funds to finance social programs and nationalisation's, and is expected to ramp up spending ahead of presidential elections in 2012.
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