Venezuela’s Maduro says to recover 70 percent of oil output decline

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro promised on Saturday to recover 70 percent of the country’s lost oil production in the first half of 2018.

“I can tell you, the unprecedented injustices led to an important fall of a million barrels of oil,” Maduro said in an interview with state television without giving more specific figures or defining a time period for the output decline.

“I think that in the first half of this year, we will have recovered 70 percent of production,” he said.

Venezuela’s oil production dropped by nearly 13 percent last year according to figures released by OPEC in January, hitting a 28-year low that suggested a deepening economic crisis and increased chances of a debt default.

Venezuela produced 2.072 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2017 compared with 2.373 million bpd the previous year, registering a near 300,000 bpd drop.

Maduro has criticized an “economic war” led by the United States as well as corruption in the state oil company PDVSA for shrinking production.

Disclaimer: Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.

Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.