The launch of Venezuela’s first offshore natural gas project this month was eclipsed by government vitriol aimed at neighbouring Guyana over a disputed border area where ExxonMobil recently struck oil. Spain’s Repsol and Italy’s Eni started gas output from the 17 trillion ft3 (481bn m3) Perla field in the Gulf of Venezuela on 6 July. There was little government fanfare, apparently because state-owned energy firm PdV has yet to take a stake of up to 35pc in accordance with the country’s gas law. Repsol and Eni discovered the shallow-water field in 2009, in the Cardon 4 block. It is the largest offshore gas deposit found to date in Latin America and the most extensive new industrial project in Venezuela since the installation in the 1990s of heavy oil upgraders, which the government later nationalised (WPA, 5 March 2007, p7). Perla gas output is expected to reach 150mn ft3/d by the end of July, and 450mn ft3/d by December. Production will rise to 800mn ft3/d in 2017 and reach its peak of 1.2bn ft3/d in 2020 (WPA, 20 February, p5). Production of Perla’s 182mn bl of condensates will start at around 10,000 b/d later this year, before rising to a peak of 28,000 b/d in 2020, Venezuelan officials say.
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