Oil industry in Caracas still functioning after military attack

Venezuela's state-owned oil company PDVSA continues to operate without interruption after the US military intervention during which President Nicolás Maduro was captured with his wife and taken out of the country. According to two sources familiar with PDVSA's operations, there has been no damage to production or refining facilities.

Nevertheless, the port of La Guaira, near Caracas, which, although not a major oil export point, is one of the major logistics centres, was severely affected.

At the same time, US forces continue to blockade oil tankers and have seized two cargoes of Venezuelan oil. This has led to a significant drop in exports - from 950 thousand barrels per day in November to around half that in December.

Fears of U.S. interference have prompted a number of shipowners to avoid Venezuelan waters, causing inventories to rise and ports to become overcrowded. PDVSA has had to cut supplies and use tankers for storage to prevent a drop in production.

In addition, the crackdown complicated the recovery of the IT system after the December cyber-attack, after which the company had to switch to a manual mode of operation.

(reuters, max)