A picture is worth 10,000 words #5: Venezuela’s oil production. part IV.

December 9, 2006

And finally we come to the last and perhaps most disturbing graph of this oil series: PDVSA’s gas production As you can see there has been an increase in production which took place in 2004 (red line). However, the net production (blue line), that is the production of gas, minus gas reinjected (orange line) back into wells is still down compared to 2001 levels. This is because after being steady near 1.9 trillion cubic feet for years, reinjected gas has been increasing sharply. In 2004, the increase was almost 50% over 2001. What is disturbing about this is that the reinjection, most of which takes place in Eastern Venezuela is simply a means for obtaining more production. Since Eastern production (previous graph) is still below 2001 levels, this means that they are reinjecting gas to force oil out faster than it should be. This damages reservoirs and implies shorter lifetimes for them. This is being done simply as a way of increasing production, without caring about long term effects.

This entry was posted on December 9, 2006 at 11:01 pm and is filed under Pictures.

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