Venezuela will maintain oil production in 2015 at the current level of three million barrels a day despite falling oil prices, the head of state oil company PDVSA said Thursday.
Eulogio del Pino, the PDVSA chief, said the company will “maintain our production and develop our capacity to react to any scenario whatever.”
He made the remarks in presenting PDVSA’s budget request to the finance committee of the National Assembly.
Venezuelan oil prices last week hit $75.79 a barrel, after a sharp two-month fall in prices that has added to the OPEC member’s deepening economic woes.
With the world’s largest oil reserves, Venezuela has said it needs oil to sell at $100 a barrel to cover its budgetary requirements, although President Nicolas Maduro recently said it would be fine with oil at $80 a barrel.
Del Pino said crude exports, which account for 96 percent of the country’s hard currency revenues, were up slightly at 2.5 million barrels a day.
The Venezuelan government puts its production at three million barrels a day, although OPEC says that as of July it was producing an average 2.83 million barrels a day.