A Killing at Sea Implicates the Armed Forces in Lawless Venezuela
Around midnight on February 23, Eulalio Bravo, a marine electrician, was dozing in his rack aboard the San Ramon, an oil tanker anchored off the coast of Venezuela.Suddenly, he heard footsteps pounding along the passageway outside. His captain, Jaime Herrera, cried for help."Be still!" an unfamiliar voice ordered.A gun fired.By the time Bravo and eight other shipmates emerged to see what had happened, the captain lay dead, a gunshot in the back of his head. Herrera's stateroom had been pillaged, drawers flung open, his bunk overturned. The killers were gone, as were thousands of dollars the captain kept under lock and key, according to crew members interviewed by Reuters.The murder…
Soldier-run PDVSA and AWOL Oil Output
Last July 6, Major General Manuel Quevedo joined his wife, a Catholic priest and a gathering of oil workers in prayer in a conference room at the headquarters of Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA.The career military officer, who for the past year has been boss at the troubled state-owned oil company, was at no ordinary mass. The gathering, rather, was a ceremony at which he and other senior oil ministry officials asked God to boost oil output."This place of peace and spirituality…
Petrobras to Seek Builders for Six Platforms
Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's state-run oil company, as of 2017 will begin seeking offers for the construction of six new offshore oil platforms envisioned in current investment plans, according to a newspaper interview published Sunday. In an interview with O Globo, the biggest daily in the company's home base of Rio de Janeiro, Petrobras' director of exploration and production said the six new platforms, together likely to cost as much as $6 billion, are among eight rigs planned to enter service by 2021, with bidding for the other two contracts already under way. The new platforms, Solange Guedes said, will come on the heels of another 11 platforms already under construction and expected to enter service through 2019.
Petrobras Finds New Oil in Offshore Florim, Lara Fields
Reuters - Brazil's state-run oil company, Petroleo Brasileiro SA, said on Friday that it had discovered new, good-quality oil deposits in the so-called sub-salt region. Petrobras, said the discovery was made in the Florim and Iara fields in the offshore Santos basin. Petrobras expects to continue exploration around the two wells until September. (Reporting by Paulo Prada. Editing by Andre Grenon)
Petrobras Cuts Spending, Quarter Profits Fall 19%
Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras moved to check years of missed targets, soaring costs and rising debt by scaling back near-term investments and setting a limit on long-term growth. Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as Petrobras is formally known, cut its five-year investment outlook for the 2014-2018 period to $221 billion, 6.8 percent less than its previous 2013-2017 plan, after reporting a 19 percent drop in fourth-quarter profit late on Tuesday. The company said production would still more than double to 5.2 million barrels of oil and natural gas a day (bpd) in 2020…
