ConocoPhillips continues to collect PdV dues

US independent ConocoPhillips continues to collect payments from Venezuela's state-owned PdV as agreed in an international arbitration.

The settlement, put in place last year, was to recover $2bn in compensation awarded by the International Chamber of Commerce related to the 2007 expropriation of the US company's stakes in two Orinoco upgraders.

Of the total, ConocoPhillips has collected over $500mn to date, chief executive Ryan Lance told reporters today after the company's annual shareholders meeting.

The payments continue to come as ConocoPhillips has US sanctions waivers in place, he said.

"We are staying very well aligned with what the US government is doing. We have waivers in place," Lance said. "They need to be paying us quarterly and they are paying."

A larger award totaling $8.7bn, by the World Bank's International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington, DC, is in a rectification process, "just looking at what sort of math errors might have occurred," he said. He did not share more details.

"The government of Venezuela has threatened to appeal. They have not done it yet," Lance said. "But that is separate and distinct from what we are doing to collect the ICC judgment."

PdV continues to comply with the payments even as Venezuela's crude production has dropped to around 500,000 b/d as sluggish export loadings and replete storage force PdV to shut in wells, four company officials tell Argus.

The decline is most pronounced in the Orinoco heavy oil belt, where production has dwindled to less than 200,000 b/d in recent days, compared with more than 700,000 b/d in early May. A year ago the oil belt was producing around 1mn b/d.