Venezuela says it stopped the fall in oil production

"We stopped the fall of production, it's a feat I called heroic workers, Heroic came in freefall (…) since 2008," he said. in an interview recorded and transmitted this Sunday by the private channel Televen, in which he did not specify the number of barrels produced by the company.

He said that in December PDVSA started to record a "slight increase", but did not provide any figures on this and described the years 2016 and 2017 as "very difficult" for the Venezuelan oil industry due to the fall in oil prices, reported the report. EFE news agency.

Quevedo attributed to the "betrayals and corruption cases registered within the company", drivers of the difficulties encountered during these years, and recalling that the prosecutor's office "had opened several investigations", which had led to "l & rsquo; Arrested 100 executives of PDVSA ".

On the sanctions imposed by the US government on the oil company, he accused "The North American nation is seeking to take over Venezuela's oil fields."

According to experts, the sanctions against PDVSA will significantly reduce the cash flow of Venezuela, a country that accounts for nearly 96% of its income in the oil industry, and will affect the economy. supply of basic goods and fuels, a phenomenon that is already affecting forces in some border states.

Venezuela's production, which has the largest proven reserves of crude in the world, it is at the lowest level of the last three decadeswith the exception of several months between the end of 2002 and the beginning of 2003, when a strike at PDVSA reduced production to less than 100,000 barrels a day, EFE recalled.