Shell seeks to sell Venezuela JV stake to France's Maurel & Prom
MEXICO CITY/CARACAS (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.AS) is negotiating the sale of its stake in a Venezuelan oil joint venture to Paris-based Maurel & Prom (MAUP.PA), three sources said this week, a move to scale down its crude business in the ailing OPEC-member country to focus on gas.
Shell’s potential scale-back comes as Venezuela’s oil industry, home to the world’s biggest crude reserves, is in meltdown. Its oil output declined again in September to 1.434 million barrels per day (bpd), OPEC data showed on Thursday, knocking down the annual average to a six-decade low.
Workers unable to feed their families on PDVSA wages are quitting in droves, underinvestment has left many installations in precarious conditions, and the production drop has accelerated under new military management.
Shell was a pioneering firm in Venezuela and has operated in its oil industry for more than a century. But it has maintained a low profile in Venezuela since late President Hugo Chavez nationalized swaths of the energy sector in 2007, converting all oil projects into PDVSA-controlled joint ventures.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-shell-exclusive/exclusive-shell-seeks-to-sell-venezuela-jv-stake-to-frances-maurel-prom-sources-idUSKCN1ML30L
This is bad news for Venezuela.
