While production and exports have restarted at all three complexes operated by PDVSA's petrochemical subsidiary Pequiven (José, Morón and El Tablazo), doubts remain about the level at which these facilities are actually operating.
Pequiven officials consistently report 100% normality, although other sources speak of a chain of shortages, in which a lack of feedstock leads to insufficient production of ethylene and a consequent scarcity of downstream products such as polyethylene for plastics production.
Nonetheless, Pequiven recently guaranteed it would be able to produce the 700,000 metric tons of fertilisers that the national agricultural sector requires this year.
And the Venezuelan government seems to finally be taking the sector seriously, after decades of under-exploitation of Venezuela's enormous petchems potential. In mid-July, President Hugo Chávez created a commission to boost development of the sector by creating incentives for private investment, providing tax breaks for plastics exporters, and developing new sources of government financing. The commission also plans to develop petrochemical research centres to advance Venezuela's technology and expertise.
There are also encouraging signs about the future of Venezuela's biggest petchems project, the US$2.3bn olefins project that Pequiven is planning to develop at its José complex in partnership with ExxonMobil. Talks on the project have made little progress since an initial agreement was reached back in 1998, but now, for the first time, Pequiven has appointed a senior director with specific responsibility for concluding the deal satisfactorily.
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