Venezuela lagging production goals

PDVSA production: Output likely to fall short of year goal

Reuters/Scanpix

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News Wires

 05 September 2012 18:11 GMT

Venezuela is on track to miss its 2012 oil production target of 3.5 million barrels per day even though two new ventures in the Orinoco heavy oil belt are expected to pump their first barrels before the end of year.

Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said on Tuesday the OPEC member's average output is 3.13 million barrels per day, considerably lower than the 3.50 million bpd target for the end of the year announced by President Hugo Chavez, Reuters reported.

Joint venture projects that include investment from Italy's Eni and a consortium of Russian companies are slated to start up before the end of 2012, state oil company PDVSA said, but will not produce enough to make up the difference.

"Production is currently 3.13 million barrels per day, 1.7 million of those are heavy…

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