PdVSA blames missing oil export revenues on old contracts

Venezuela's state oil firm PdVSA has admitted that $ 2.17 bn in export revenues from oil produced at four Orinoco oil belt projects during the period January-April did not enter the country, PdVSA said.
The US dollar revenues were not sold to the Central Bank as all oil revenue is supposed to be under Venezuelan law due to "complex mechanisms" inherited from contracts drafted by the "old PdVSA," it said.

The "old PdVSA" is how President Hugo Chavez and his supporters refer to managers and workers that launched a 63-day strike in late 2002 that ended with the government firing 18,000 of them, almost half the company's labour force at the time.
The four Orinoco projects produced an average 617,000 bpd from January-April out of Venezuela's total average oil production of 3.24 mm bpd in the period. Of the total $ 12.9 bn in revenues from oil exports in January-April, only $ 10.8 bn entered the country and $ 7.61 bn was sold to the Central Bank, it said.

PdVSA did not say where the money from the Orinoco oil sales might have ended up and Zulia state opposition lawmaker Julio Montoya, who has accused PdVSA of mismanaging oil revenues, does not know either.
"We in the national assembly don't know where they are depositing that money," Montoya told. The only way of keeping dollars out with the "old PdVSA" was a $ 700 mm rotating fund earmarked for paying goods and services abroad, Montoya said.
"What about the $ 4 bn missing from 2004? They say they used it for social programs, but who knows?"

PdVSA president and energy and oil minister Rafael Ramirez has denied political allegations about the "missing billions". The official explanation was that the minister was "tired" after a late-night plane trip to Caracas from the oilfields in Zulia state.
Montoya said he will go to the attorney general's office on May 23 to request an investigation into the matter, but his hopes are not very high that anything will be done.
"It's getting more complicated everyday, pro-government lawmakers are blocking our investigations," he said. President Chavez has shown a streak of "authoritarianism and disrespect for institutions," he added.