PdV releases brief report on 2015 results
Venezuelan state-owned oil company PdV earned a profit of $2.58bn in 2015 on income of almost $72.17bn, according to an unusually brief summary of the company's financial results.
In a six-page summary PdV reported 2015 profits that were more than 79pc lower than the $12.46bn profit booked in 2014. PdV's global consolidated sales last year were more than $49.7bn, or nearly 41pc less than the $121.89bn reported in 2014.
Sharply lower oil prices were responsible for all of the decrease in net profit and sales as PdV's average export price tumbled to just over $44/bl in 2015 compared to over $88/bl the year before, the company said.
PdV's crude and gas liquids output averaged 2.86mn b/d in 2015, down 36,000 b/d from the 2.896mn b/d reported in 2014.
The summarized annual report departs dramatically from the detailed reports the company has typically released, which have totaled up to 300 pages in the past. The report does not break down upstream production totals regionally as is usually the case, there are no data sets for eastern and western division operations, nor for activities in the Orinoco oil belt.
The document says it is based on externally audited results, but longtime external auditor Rodriguez Velasquez and Associates, the Venezuelan affiliate of KPMG, appeared to distance itself from the document.
"PdV's management, which compiled and submitted data for independent review, is alone response for any material inaccuracies resulting from fraud or error," the auditor said in the document.
PdV's external auditor also warned that ongoing internal corruption probes within PdV, as well as PdV's transactions with other state-owned entities, could substantially change the 2015 annual report's results.
PdV's summarized annual report omits all mention of preferentially financed exports to PetroCaribe countries such as Cuba, and to China as payment for oil-backed loans.
PdV's crude and product exports averaged 2.42mn b/d, up 68,000 b/d compared with 2.352mn b/d in 2014. PdV presumably was able to raise exports in 2015 despite falling upstream and downstream output as local consumption dropped because of the economy's almost 8pc contraction last year. Local consumption data is not included in the six-page summary.
PdV claims in the report that it increased non-oil social spending to $9.19bn in 2015 compared with $5.32bn in 2014. But PdV only transferred the equivalent of $97.4mn last year to the state-controlled Fonden development fund through which all social spending is supposed to be channeled. Where and how PdV disposed of over $9bn in apparently direct social transfers is not detailed.
The abbreviated 2015 report does show that crude and products exports originating from Venezuela accounted for over $32.37bn of PdV's consolidated global income, down 49.6pc from over $64.28bn in 2014.
PdV's consolidated income in 2015 included over $16.83bn of "financial revenue" generated by dollar sales in the government-controlled three-tiered currency market. PdV did not report financial income from arbitraging government-controlled exchange rates before 2010.
PdV also reported net crude and products purchases totaling $22.96bn in 2015, down $14.3bn, or 38.3pc, from $37.26bn in 2014. This figure includes third party crude and product buys made to meet supply contracts. It also includes crude and product imports to Venezuela that subsequently are re-exported as blends or finished products. PdV for about the past decade has included these transactions as part of its reported global consolidated income to bulk up the total.
PdV's core operating costs totaled over $16.82bn in 2015, down 38.5pc from $27.4bn in 2014. Exploration costs of only $50mn in 2015 — compared with $76mn in 2014 and $150mn in 2013 — confirm that PdV has practically shut down exploration spending.
PdV royalty and extraction tax income, which transfers directly to the central government, declined by over 53pc in 2015 to $6.29bn compared with $13.46bn in 2014.
PdV's direct financial debt edged lower, totaling $43.71bn in 2015 compared with $45.73bn in 2014.
A new debt category called "liabilities associated with assets maintained for disposal" totaling almost $4.4bn apparently was included for the first time in PdV's 2015 results. An energy ministry official said this category appears to include the debt held by PdV's downstream US affiliate Citgo.
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