PDVSA SETS 1995, 5 YEAR UPSTREAM TARGETS

PDVSA's Upstream Operating Targets for 1994-99 (23992 bytes)

Venezuela's state owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA plans to spend about $300 million/year for exploration during 1995-2000, company officials told Oil & Gas journal.

Those outlays will cover only work conducted by Pdvsa operating units Corpoven SA, Lagoven SA, and Maraven SA working with service companies.

PDVSA Areas To Be Offered Under Profit Sharing Pacts (19383 bytes)

Not included are investments made under profit sharing agreements, joint ventures in heavy oil development and upgrading, or operating contracts. The excluded categories represent a potentially large target for added investment by the end of the decade.

1995 UPSTREAM TARGETS

For 1995, Pdvsa plans to drill about 30 wildcats, about the same as in 1994. Its emphasis will be on these areas: eastern Maturin, southern flanks of the Venezuelan Andes, western Zulia, Barines-Apure, northern flank of the Perija range, Falcon basin, and adjacent areas.

Any drilling in the Gulf of Venezuela, considered under plans drawn up by the previous government but now on hold, does not seem likely. Venezuela and Colombia hold conflicting territorial claims in the gulf, believed to be highly prospective for oil.

Seismic surveys planned for 1995 break out as about 22,000 km of 2D and 12,000 sq km of 3D.

The company expects to hike roved crude oil reserves b 798 million bbl to 64.922 billion bbl this year and proved gas reserves by 3.1 tcf to 141.7 tcf.

Crude productive capacity is expected to climb by 180,000 b/d this year, reaching 3.155 million b/d by yearend. That will represent the country's highest productive capacity since Venezuela's oil industry was nationalized in 1976.

EXPORTS

For 1995, Pdvsa expects to earn $12.3 billion in export revenues. This includes projected sales of 871 million bbl of crude and refined products, 4.3 million metric tons of coal, 4.78 million tons of Orimulsion, and 1.25 million tons of petrochemicals.

Exports of crude and refined products alone are expected to bring in $11.76 billion, said Venezuela's minister of energy and mines, Erwin Arrieta. Pdvsa's target for crude and refined products this year is an average 2.387 million b/d at an average export price of $13.50/bbl.

Meantime, Venezuela's central bank reported that Pdvsa's oil exports netted $11.16 billion in 1994, up $770 million from 1993. That compares with the country's total exports of $15.7 billion in 1994, up 12% from 1993. Pdvsa exports, including crude, refined products and other energy products, accounted for 71% of all Venezuelan exports in 1994.

FIVE YEAR PROGRAM

Pdvsa wildcats planned the next few years will be programmed to 16,000-18,000 ft, mostly as vertical wells.

On the production side, Pdvsa is targeting a crude oil productive capacity of more than 4 million b/d by 1999, up from 2.873 million b/d at yearend 1993.

During 1961-71, Pdvsa productive capacity jumped by 1 million b/d. So the company's plans to add still another 1 million b/d to productive capacity would have to be accomplished in half the time of the previous increase.

Pdvsa would account for about 50% of this productive capacity increase, with the remainder to come from its foreign investment programs involving marginal fields, profit sharing agreements, and heavy oil joint ventures.

The giant state company plans to drill 4,300 step-out and development wells and conduct 12,000 workovers, with an emphasis on light and medium crudes, by the turn of the century.

The potential for adding heavy oil productive capacity during the next 5 years is targeted at about 150,000 b/d, not including Orimulsion, a boiler fuel Pdvsa unit Biter SA produces from an emulsion of bitumen, water, and a surfactant.

Pdvsa says it is willing to use any new technology or operating approach in exploration and production that will trim costs and improve operating efficiencies. On the table are advances in turnkey drilling, incentive drilling, measurement while drilling (MWD), and coiled tubing. Projects involving slim hole drilling, MWD,and horizontal drilling are under way in Venezuela.

Pdvsa plans to apply horizontal drilling methods to about 20% of the wells it plans to drill in the next 5 years. In addition, plans are proceeding to expand use of coiled tubing much more extensively than is currently the case.