Private oil producer North America Blue Energy Partners (Nabep) said it is sending about half of its Venezuelan oil production directly to the US while the other half is sent to eastern Venezuela for blending and upgrading.
In a tour of its operations this week — ranging from air-conditioned offices in Ciudad Ojeda to drilling rigs and gas compression plants 50 miles out on Maracaibo Lake — the US government-backed company said it is busy trying to boost production from long-neglected wells.
A floating workover rig, "la 28", has been traveling around the lake for seven months working on existing wells. The workovers take between 9-12 days on wells with laterals as long as 16,000 feet, says lake operations supervisor Wilber Palencia and Nabep supervisor Rolando Moran.
In some cases the work is relatively easy, like replacing a submerged electrical pump that stopped operating in 2018, at the height of the first wave of US sanctions against PdV. In other cases, it requires a combination of drilling, fuel oil flooding, gas lift techniques and submersible pumping.
Gas lift has been the most successful technique so far, helping to produce 30°API crude from the Ceuta formation, although the lake can yield crude as low as 8°API. There are 114 wells Nabep operates on the lake that are being supported by heavy gas compression equipment to produce about 25,000 b/d.
Pulling light crude from Ceuta and adjacent fields is a priority for Nabep. "We have several wells to attack, at least 40," Moran said. "If we can fix them to produce 2,000 b/d each, well, that's something."
Nabep's Zulia division, which includes much of the former Petrozamora project, reported record production of 120,000 b/d on 12 November, about half of the company's total 220,000 b/d production, with an end-of-year goal of 130,000 b/d.
There are no plans for new wells in Zulia at this time, according to to Nabep.
Moran highlighted a number of aspects about the operations, such at the ability to switch from gas lift to submersible electric pumps with almost no loss in daily production if needed. The drilling mud is domestically produced, and much of the fuel used for maintaining well pressure, like fuel oil and diesel are also local and do not need to be imported.
