(Caracas) Venezuela “is ready” to “supply the world market” for oil and gas, President Nicolas Maduro said on Wednesday, denouncing the energy crisis caused by the “irrational” sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
Posted at 10:08 p.m.
“Venezuela is ready and willing to fulfill its role and supply, in a stable and safe manner, the oil and gas market that the world economy needs,” the head of state said at an event organized within the framework of the visit to Caracas of the Secretary General of OPEC, Haitham al-Ghais.
Mr Maduro claimed his government had “turned around” its oil industry, whose production had reached historic lows after years of disinvestment and lack of maintenance.
Today it is around 700,000 barrels per day, up from 2.3 million barrels per day in 2002.
The United States imposed a series of sanctions on Caracas in 2019, including an embargo on Venezuelan oil, after Mr Maduro was re-elected in 2018 for a second term in a ballot boycotted by the opposition.
President Joe Biden’s administration announced in May a limited easing of some of those sanctions. The move came as energy prices surged due to the war in Ukraine.
The Chavista president condemned the “energy crisis” generated by the sanctions against Russia, which he described as “irrational, unjustified (and) illogical”.
Russia, Europe’s largest supplier, has sharply reduced its gas deliveries, sparking fears of shortages and rising prices.
Maduro called for a “fair, balanced price” of $100 a barrel and reiterated his call for foreign oil companies to produce in Venezuela. ” We are ready […] to increase oil production in a gradual and accelerated manner, to expand and increase the production of refined products,” he said.
“Venezuela has more than 50 first-rate gas projects, with seismic studies carried out and with all the legal guarantees for international investors” to come “to produce gas in Venezuela and bring it to international markets”, he said. -He insists.
Mr Al-Ghais said OPEC was facing “the most serious, the most critical” challenges since its inception 62 years ago.