Venezuela wants to boost its oil production by 18 percent this year through planned reforms that will fully open the sector to private investors, the head of the state oil giant PDVSA said on Jan. 24.
"We had a law...that was not up to date with what we needed as an industry," company CEO Hector Obregon said, adding the target for 2026 "is to grow by at least 18 percent."
Proposed reforms to the Organic Hydrocarbons Law would update the legal framework in the oil industry "to ensure that private investors can have legal certainty," Obregon said from the Puerto La Cruz refinery in eastern Venezuela.
Analysts say the law proposed by interim president Delcy Rodriguez and adopted in a first parliamentary reading last week was drafted under pressure from Washington after the seizure of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro from Caracas by U.S. forces during a raid and air strikes on January 3.
The law is expected to be passed this week.
The South American nation produces around 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd), according to authorities, and sits on about one-fifth of the world's oil reserves.
Years of mismanagement and corruption have driven production down from a peak of over 3 million bpd in the early 2000s to a historic low of 350,000 barrels daily in 2020.
If adopted, the bill would roll back decades of state control over Venezuela's oil sector, which were tightened by Maduro's late mentor, socialist firebrand Hugo Chavez, in the mid-2000s.
