NY Times: Halliburton bails on Venezuela.
Halliburton Writes Off Remaining $312 Million Invested in Venezuela
By Clifford Krauss
April 23, 2018
HOUSTON — Halliburton, the global oil service company, announced on Monday that it had written off its remaining investment of $312 million in Venezuela, as oil production in the politically polarized and virtually bankrupt country continues to plummet.
The move had long been expected because the state-owned oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, known as Pdvsa, had for years been falling behind on paying its bills from companies that maintain and operate its oil and gas wells.
“This is one step further into the collapse of the Venezuelan oil industry,” said Francisco J. Monaldi, a Venezuelan energy expert at Rice University, “because it means oil service contractors, which are absolutely essential to operations, are slowly giving up on the country.’’
Daily oil production in Venezuela, the country with the world’s largest reserves, has plummeted by 200,000 barrels since late last year,
to its lowest level in 30 years. That drop has helped raise global oil prices in recent weeks to more than $70 a barrel, and has pushed gasoline prices in the United States to their highest level for this time of the year in three years.
Pdvsa has been purged of more than 80 executives in recent months, and its operations have been put under the command of a major general in Venezuela’s National Guard with no experience in the oil business. Tensions between the national company and foreign companies that operate in the country have increased as military officers have taken over more oil supervisory positions.
Two Venezuelan employees of Chevron, a major partner of Pdvsa’s, were arrested last week after they refused to sign a contract.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/business/halliburton-venezuela-pdvsa.html
Halliburton wrote off $647 million last year. Schlumberger wrote off $1 billion last year. There are no Venezuelans with the technological know-how to keep the wells pumping. (Chavez fired them in 2002 and replaced them with loyalists. Halliburton and Schlumberger contracted for the services that PdVSA used to do in house)
¡Viva la Revolución!
