查韋斯之死救不了委內瑞拉石油業

????委內瑞拉能源產業機能失調，總統烏戈?查韋斯之死并不是能讓它起死回生的靈丹妙藥。不穩定的政治和經濟局勢可能依舊會讓外國投資者裹足不前，無法完全承諾提供有效利用該國石油寶藏所亟需的金錢、資源和專業技術。委內瑞拉的政策、結構和官僚主義令在該國投資成為一場危險而愚蠢的游戲，因此，無論是誰將接掌國家政權，都需要就此展開全面改革。

????毫不夸張地說，本周二烏戈?查韋斯之死震動了能源產業。十幾年來，這個“玻利瓦爾主義”的強人都是石油業的最大惡棍。在委內瑞拉的總統任期內，查韋斯不僅撕毀合約，沒收埃克森美孚（ExxonMobil）和康菲石油公司（ConocoPhillips）等國外石油公司的用地和設備；還設法壓榨了國內的委內瑞拉石油公司（Petróleos de Venezuela），把它作為實施其所謂“21世紀社會主義”實驗的項目和政策的金庫。

????曾幾何時，委內瑞拉被視作自由主義的堡壘，這里是所謂能源詛咒——即石油財富必將導致腐敗和政權獨裁的推斷——的一個例外。民主選舉的政府盡管遠未盡善盡美，卻比其他盛產石油的國家（比如中東的產油國）更加穩固。這種政治上的穩定吸引了全球的投資者，尤其是康菲石油公司和雪佛龍公司（Chevron）這樣的美國石油巨頭。

????到了20世紀90年代，委內瑞拉石油公司和當時國外幾乎所有的歐美石油巨頭合作，每天從委內瑞拉的油田中抽取約300萬桶石油，使委內瑞拉一躍成為石油輸出國組織（OPEC）的第三大原油出口國。委內瑞拉石油公司的長遠計劃是逐漸增加開采量至每天800萬桶，達到石油出口巨頭俄羅斯和沙特阿拉伯的水平。

????但是查韋斯不稱職的盜賊統治和腐敗行為導致了委內瑞拉石油出口的下降。它的產量最終下降至每天240萬桶，比14年前查韋斯接管政權時減少了25%。如果原因是因為委內瑞拉原油儲量銳減，那倒情有可原，可是情況并非如此——絕非如此。實際上，石油輸出國組織2010年證實委內瑞拉的奧里諾科河油帶儲有等同于3,000億桶原油的瀝青砂，足以在10年內滿足當今世界的石油需求量。它意味著委內瑞拉擁有地球上最多的石油儲量，超過了沙特阿拉伯的2,600億桶儲油。

????如今的油價比1998年查韋斯接任時高出10倍，人們可能會認為奧里諾科河油帶遍布鉆探設備，工人們正在如饑似渴地抽取這里豐富的石油財富。但顯然，事實并未如此。查韋斯掌權期間，對國內石油業發起了一系列毀滅性的“改革”，最終讓石油業元氣大傷。他撕毀了前任政府簽署的產量分成合同，強迫外國原油公司向國家上交更多利潤。

????之后，查韋斯將委內瑞拉石油公司當成自己的提款機，拒絕提供公司擴大奧里諾科河勘探規模的必要投資資本。2011年，委內瑞拉石油公司被壓榨到只剩110億美元，即總收入的9%，用于投入將來的運營。這點錢僅能維持基本運作，更不用說滿足鉆探需要。與之相反，墨西哥的Pemex國有石油公司（以及極度官僚的政府）花費了190億美元，即17%的收入用于運營。而巴西石油公司（Petrobras）在這方面的投入則是420億美元，占全部收入的29%。

????委內瑞拉石油公司稱，到2015年對奧里諾科河的投資將達到約1,400億美元。考慮到吸血鬼一般的政府，很難想象怎么達到這個目標。查韋斯一月份命令委內瑞拉石油公司增加對他不入賬的國家發展基金（Fonden）的賄金，以支持他的“革命”，此舉導致公司財力愈加枯竭。最終，政府致使公司背上了350億美元的債務，同時附帶沉重的利息，而這只會加劇公司的財政負擔。

????但是，對委內瑞拉石油投資的致命打擊則可能發生在2007年查韋斯將石油業“重新收歸國有”時。他把大量（再次）拒絕重新就合約進行談判的國外石油公司趕出國境，也就是自20世紀90年代早期起就分別在這個國家投資了數十億美元的埃克森美孚和康菲石油公司。

????

????The death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is no panacea for the nation's dysfunctional energy industry. Political and economic uncertainty will likely continue to deter foreign investors from fully committing the necessary cash, resources, and expertise that are desperately needed to effectively tap the nation's oil wealth. Whoever takes over the reins of the nation will need to dismantle the policies, structures, and rhetoric that have made investing in Venezuela a fool's errand.

????It is not hyperbole to say that Hugo Chavez's death Tuesday rocked the energy industry. The "Bolivarian" strongman has been the oil industry's biggest villain for over a decade. In his tenure as president of Venezuela, Chavez not only trashed contracts and expropriated lands and equipment from foreign oil companies, like ExxonMobil (XOM) and ConocoPhillips (COP); he also managed to crush the national oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), by using it as a piggy bank to fund the programs and policies associated with his nebulously defined "21stCentury Socialism" experiment.

????There was a time when Venezuela was seen as a bastion of liberalism -- an exception to the so-called resource curse, which posits that oil wealth fosters corrupt and dictatorial regimes. Its democratically-elected governments, while far from perfect, were seen as more stable than other oil-rich nations, such as those in the Middle East. This stability attracted foreign investors from around the globe, especially U.S. oil giants like ConocoPhillips and Chevron (CVX).

????By the 1990s PDVSA and its foreign partners, which at the time included pretty much all the big U.S. and European oil giants, were pumping around three million barrels a day of oil from Venezuelan fields, making it the third-largest oil exporter in OPEC. PDVSA's long-term plan was to gradually increase its production capacity to around eight million barrels a day, which would have put Venezuela on par with oil exporting giants like Russia and Saudi Arabia.

????But the ineptitude and corruption of the Chavez kleptocracy have contributed to a decline in overall Venezuelan oil output, which at last count came in at 2.4 million barrels a day, 25% less than what it was when Chavez took power 14 years ago. That would have been excusable if Venezuela's oil reserves were rapidly depleting, but that isn't the case -- not by a long shot. Indeed, in 2010, OPEC confirmed that Venezuela's Orinoco oil belt contained tar sand deposits equivalent to around 300 billion barrels of oil, enough to fulfill current world demand for 10 years. That would mean Venezuela would have the largest oil reserves on the planet, outstripping Saudi Arabia's 260 billion barrel oil stash.

????With today's oil price being 10 times higher than where it was when Chavez took power in 1998, one would surmise that the Orinoco oil belt today would be littered with equipment and workers trying furiously to tap its abundant oil wealth. But, of course, that isn't the case. During his reign, Chavez instituted a series of devastating "reforms" to the nation's oil industry, which ended up breaking its back. He ripped up production sharing contracts signed under the previous government, forcing foreign oil companies to hand over more of their profit to the state.

????Chavez then used PDVSA as his own personal ATM, starving the company of the necessary investment capital needed to expand its operations in the Orinoco. In 2011, PDVSA was left with just $11 billion, or 9%, of its total income, to fund future operations. That was barely enough to keep the lights on, let alone go out and enough to drill. By contrast, Pemex, Mexico's state owned-oil company (and all-around bureaucratic basket case), spent around $19 billion, or 17%, of its income on operations, while Brazil's Petrobras invested $42 billion, or 29%, of its income.

????PDVSA says it will be investing some $140 billion in the Orinoco by 2015. It is hard to see how that can happen given how much the government is siphoning off. In January, Chavez ordered PDVSA to increase its payments to his off-the-books slush fund, Fonden, which is used to support the "revolution," further draining its resources. Lastly, the government has saddled PDVSA with around $35 billion in debt, slapping the company with fat interest payments, which will only augment its money woes.

????But probably the fatal blow to Venezuelan oil investment came in 2007 when Chavez essentially "renationalized" the industry, booting out a number of foreign oil companies who refused to (once again) renegotiate their contracts, namely U.S. oil giants ExxonMobil and ConocoPhilips, which had each invested billions of dollars in the country since the early 1990s.

????