Petrozamora, a one-time joint venture oil project with Russia's Gazprombank, is now a 100pc PdV-owned subsidiary, PdV workers were told over the weekend.
Russian companies like Rosneft and Lukoil were once regular partners with PdV on a number of projects, but they began pulling out of Venezuela when the US started to impose sanctions on PdV and companies doing business with it. In 2020 Russia created Roszarubezhneft to take over Rosneft's Venezuelan business, but it has been slowly unwinding the partnerships.
In a series of messages PdV workers were told to keep the withdrawal of the Russians from the Petrozamora project secret or risk being disciplined.
Roszarubezhneft is still partnered with PdV to operate a natural gas field in eastern Venezuela's Monagas state.
Erick Perez, a candidate to succeed Asdrubal Chavez to head state-run PdV as recently as last week, is now the president of Petrozamora. Julio Castillo will be general manager under Perez, while Mariebert Jimenez will be sub-manager.
PdV declined to comment.
Petrozamora is in Zulia state, the birthplace of Venezuela's oil industry, which has seen production decline to less than 100,000 b/d from 150,000 b/d earlier in the year. Only about 1,500 of the 7,500-plus wells in the region are still producing, according to a PdV source. Ever-increasing volumes of water in the production and a lack of funds to rework wells has been cited as the main reason for the declining production.
Petrozamora was producing around 26,000 b/d in August, according to one PdV source, down from 29,000 b/d just a few weeks earlier.
