Venezuela needs $58bn to restore pre-Chavez crude output levels

State oil firm PDVSA would need $58bn in investment to get back to the levels it was producing in 1998, Reuters news reports, citing a document the news agency viewed.

Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA would need $58bn in investment to revive its crude production to the levels of 1998 before ex-President Hugo Chavez came to power, equivalent to 3.4 million barrels per day (bpd), a document seen by the Reuters news agency shows. In the February 2021 document entitled, “Investment Opportunities”, Petroleos de Venezuela’s planning and engineering division said it was seeking capital investment from Venezuelan and foreign partners, mostly to recover and upgrade oil production infrastructure “under new business models”. The main new partnership model PDVSA detailed in the document was the use of production services agreements (ASPs).