Venezuela faces sharper output drop in August

Venezuela faces an even steeper decline in oil production in August as a result of an extensive blackout around Lake Maracaibo. The country's official July output averaged 1.469mn b/d, a loss of 62,000 b/d from 1.531mn b/d a month earlier, according to energy ministry data provided to Opec. The official figure is 57,000 b/d lower than the 1.526mn b/d state-owned PdV reported for July in an internal upstream report. The average of secondary sources reported by Opec was 1.278mn b/d in July, down from 1.325mn b/d in June. Venezuela's waning oil output has accelerated over the past year because of falling oil revenues, steep cuts in maintenance and investment, frequent blackouts and labour shortages. "There are many reasons to believe that production is a lot lower than [PdV is reporting]," a company official says.