Petroleos de Venezuela is getting ready to start what it’s dubbed “one of the world’s largest drilling projects” in the Orinoco heavy crude belt with investment totaling $3.2 billion even as its president, Eulogio Del Pino, says the global oil market is oversupplied.
“The project involves contracting integrated services for platform construction, drilling, completion and connection of wells for joint ventures Petrocarabobo, Petrovictoria and Petroindependencia located in the belt,” the company said Wednesday, adding that 18 rigs would be available.
PDVSA, as the Caracas-based company is known, will drill 480 wells to add 250,000 bpd of new oil output over the next 30 months, according to an emailed statement. Schlumberger, Horizontal Well Drillers, and Venezuela’s Y&V Group were selected after a worldwide tender, with Halliburton and Baker Hughes providing support for specific project’>project activities.
Del Pino on Monday alluded to the deal and said companies that had previously threatened to reduce activity in the country were now presenting plans to increase output and would be paid once new production started to flow. That same day, he said that oil prices should be around $70/bbl and that global output needed to decline about 10% in order to get there.