For once Yoshie and I are in complete agreement.
--- Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/16/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> > In some sense, yeah. I keep worrying that Chavez
> is going to crash
> > and burn, in no small part because PdVSA is going
> to run into the
> > ground. There's a real problem with distributing
> all the oil profits
> > for social development - as wonderful as that
> should be, you can't
> > keep the company going that way. It runs the risk
> of ending up like
> > Pemex. And what about the managers and techies? If
> they're all
> > reactionaries who go on strike or into exile, how
> can you keep the
> > economy running? Inflation in Venez is approaching
> 20% - that sort of
> > thing often comes to a bad end. I hope I'm wrong.
>
> Considerable socialist intellectual energy once went
> into debating
> whether the USSR, China, etc. were really socialist;
> if not, what kind
> of political economy they had; whether central
> planning or market
> socialism is better; etc. But instead of those, the
> topic that is
> most worth discussing may be how to run and develop
> mixed economy
> while creating socialist culture, since mixed
> economy is what you'll
> run in the interim even if you are actually aiming
> for socialist
> economy in the end.
>
> As for PDVSA, do the estimates below seem accurate
> to you?
>
>
<http://www.thedialogue.org/publications/2006/winter/arriagada.pdf>
> Petropolitics in Latin America
> A Review of Energy Policy and Regional Relations
> Genaro Arriagada
>
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
>
> Stagnant production: While Venezuela has vast
> reserves, it has not
> raised production levels.The UN Economic Commission
> for Latin America
> and the Caribbean (ECLAC) reports that Venezuela's
> gross domestic
> product (GDP) grew 17.9 percent in 2004, a rebound
> from the severe
> downturn of 2002 and 2003. Estimates for 2005 set
> growth at about 9.3
> percent. However, ECLAC also adds that "
expected
> GDP growth will not
> come from oil production, which has yet to recover
> to pre-strike
> levels as a result of insufficient investment. These
> factors have led
> Venezuela to produce at levels below OPEC ceilings.
> Sector strength
> will depend exclusively on world price increases, as
> [
] capacity for
> expanded production remains extremely limited."
> Assessing how much
> production has fallen is difficult without reliable
> PDVSA figures.
> While the company says production has returned to
> 2000 and 2001 levels
> -- about 3.1 million barrels per day (bpd) --
> independent reports
> estimate that it did not exceed 2.7 million bpd.
>
> Investment: To maintain current output, Venezuela's
> oil industry
> requires considerable annual investment, especially
> in exploration and
> production. Evidence indicates that PDVSA investment
> falls
> significantly short of these minimum levels. PDVSA's
> plan for
> 2005-2010 calls for investing $6.3 billion from
> public sources and an
> extra $2.5 billion from private sources. While no
> official figures are
> available, 2005 estimates indicate that slightly
> over half the PDVSA
> target will be reached, less than $3.5 billion.
> Private investment is
> also predicted to fall short of the target due to
> uncertainty about
> foreign property rights and investment policy. These
> estimates
> indicate that oil output will continue to slide or,
> at best, remain at
> current levels. PDVSA investment falls short of the
> investment levels
> of other state-owned regional oil companies.
> Estimates show that
> PEMEX, the state-owned Mexican petroleum company,
> invested more than
> twice as much as PDVSA in 2003. The Brazilian
> state-owned oil company,
> Petrobras, invested over 150 percent more. It
> recently announced
> annual investments of $12 billion through the year
> 2010 -- more than
> three times as much as PDVSA.
> --
> Yoshie
>
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