The Venezuelan state-owned oil and gas company PDVSA plans to increase its oil production to 2 mb/d in 2022 and to 3 mb/d in the medium term. The group also aims to raise the production of oil derivatives, gas and petrochemicals.
Oil operations in Venezuela have been severely hit by US sanctions imposed since 2017 (reinforced by an oil embargo in 2019 and secondary sanctions in 2020), especially oil production in the Orinoco oil belt, which were shipping around 0.5 mb/d of extra-heavy crude oil to US Gulf coast refiners. PDVSA an its partners thus tried to convert heavy crude upgraders into blending facililities to export to Asian markets, but production has remained limited. Venezuela's oil production declined from 3.1 mb/d in 2011 to 0.7 mb/d in 2020 and is currently estimated at 1 mb/d.