Venezuela expects nearly 76 billion US dollars in oil investment over the next five years under recently signed agreements, the acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, said on Saturday. Reuters reported her remarks in a dispatch carried by The Straits Times.
Speaking on national television, Rodríguez said a bilateral accord with the United States includes plans to drill 250 rigs and covers 17 oil fields, and forms part of a broader package of 61 agreements signed by the parties.
"Major investments are coming," she said. "We are talking about investment of almost US$76 billion over five years. Those investments will translate into direct benefits for our country in a win-win partnership, because our partner will also benefit."
Venezuela has the world's largest proven crude oil reserves but produces well below the levels seen a decade ago. Output has suffered from years of underinvestment, operational problems at the state oil company PDVSA and US sanctions on the energy sector.
Since the January ouster of President Nicolás Maduro, the country has been reopening its energy sector to foreign investment with the backing of the administration of US President Donald Trump.
Rodríguez also highlighted a recovery in production in the western state of Zulia. There, she said, output rose from 70,000 barrels per day to 370,000 barrels per day, and was expected to reach 400,000 by the end of 2026.
She did not say over what period the increase occurred.
That omission makes the Zulia number the most interesting figure in the announcement, because a change with no period attached is not a rate. Seventy thousand barrels a day became 370,000 barrels a day. The interval is the missing term, and the market is invited to supply it.
It matters a great deal which one is supplied. Spread across the decade of underinvestment the figure describes a creditable recovery. Spread across a quarter it describes a turnaround that would be studied for years. Spread across a fortnight it describes the most productive fortnight in the history of the industry. The statement as given is compatible with all three.
Our analysts, applying the convention that an unspecified interval should be treated as the shortest one consistent with the facts, have recorded the increase as instantaneous and moved on to the remainder.
The remainder is instructive. Of the rise to 400,000 barrels a day, some 300,000 arrived over no stated period and the final 30,000 has been given until the end of December. The last tenth of the programme is thus the only part of it that is running to a timetable, and therefore the only part that can be behind.
The same test can be applied to the rest of the package. Sixty-one agreements have been signed, over an unstated signing period. Two hundred and fifty rigs are planned, on no stated schedule. The 76 billion dollars is the one number in the announcement that arrived with a term attached, and the term is five years.
The Department of Unnecessary Research has written to Caracas to ask which of these figures the market is expected to use, and has provisionally adopted the one with the timescale, on the grounds that it is the only one capable of being wrong.
Zulia is now expected to add its final 30,000 barrels a day by the end of December. It is the only part of the increase that can be late.