PDVSA
Venezuelan state-owned oil and power company / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (acronym PDVSA, Spanish pronunciation: [peðeˈβesa]) (English: Petroleum of Venezuela) is the Venezuelan state-owned oil and natural gas company. It has activities in exploration, production, refining and exporting oil as well as exploration and production of natural gas. Since its founding on 1 January 1976, with the nationalization of the Venezuelan oil industry, PDVSA has dominated the oil industry of Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter.
Company type | State-owned enterprise |
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Industry | Oil and gas |
Founded | January 1976; 48 years ago (1976-01) |
Headquarters | Maracaibo, Venezuela |
Key people | Pedro Tellechea, President[1] |
Products | Fuel, natural gas and other petrochemicals |
Revenue | US$48.0 billion (2016)[2] |
$828 million (2016)[2] | |
Total assets | $189.7 billion (2016)[3] |
Owner | Government of Venezuela |
Number of employees | 70,000 |
Subsidiaries | PDV Marina CVP Pequiven CIED PDVSA Gas PDV Deltaven Palmaven Electricidad de Caracas, C.A. (93.62%)[4] Citgo (100%)[5] |
Website | www |
This article needs to be updated. (April 2024) |
Oil reserves in Venezuela are the largest in the world and the state-owned PDVSA provides the government of Venezuela with substantial funding resources.[6] Following the Bolivarian Revolution, PDVSA was mainly used as a vital source of income for the Venezuelan government.[7] Profits were also used to assist the presidency, with funds directed towards allies of the Venezuelan government.[7] With PDVSA focusing on political projects instead of oil production, mechanical and technical statuses deteriorated while employee expertise was removed following thousands of politically motivated firings.[7] Incompetence within the company has led to serious inefficiencies and accidents and to endemic corruption;[8] at least US$11 billion was stolen between 2004 and 2015. Jorge Giordani, minister of planning until in 2014, estimates that $300 billion was simply stolen.[9] In 2018 thousands of workers left PDVSA,[10] especially after the company was put under military control.[11]