Orinoco 'producing 520,000 bpd'

Venezuela's four nationalised Orinoco heavy crude projects are producing more than 520,000 barrels per day, a vice president of state oil company PDVSA said today.

Refining, commerce and supply vice president Asdrubal Chavez said in a statement reported by state news agency ABN that the projects' output was above 520,000 bpd and that operations were running smoothly.

Exploration and production vice president Luis Vierma last week said production was at 500,000 bpd, while Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said in early June production was 418,000 bpd, Reuters reported.

PDVSA in June took a majority stake in the four projects are part of a nationalisation drive led by leftist President Hugo Chavez that edged US supermajors ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips out of the Opec nation.

The other four partners, BP, Chevron, France's Total and Norway's Statoil , negotiated agreements to stay on as minority partners.

The four multibillion-dollar operations can turn tar-like Orinoco crude into around 570,000 bpd of valuable synthetic oil that can be processed by traditional refineries.

Venezuela in January imposed Opec cuts on the projects that vastly lowered their output, though authorities have steadily upped the official production figures from the four joint venture since Venezuela took over their operations on 1 May.

Ramirez has said Venezuela's Opec cuts total 195,000 bpd, though authorities had originally discussed cuts totaling 138,000 bpd.

A fifth project, a joint venture between PDVSA and China's CNPC called Sinovensa, has traditionally produced Orinoco oil that was used for the boiler fuel Orimulsion.

But Venezuela discontinued this product last year, and it is unclear what Sinovensa's current production is and whether it is included in official production figures.