By Marianna Parraga, Ana Isabel Martinez and Deisy Buitrago
HOUSTON/CARACAS, Aug 25 (Reuters) - A contract that SLB and Venezuela's state-run PDVSA signed last week has granted the U.S. oil services and technology company access to oilfield data from the country with the world's largest crude reserves, three sources close to the negotiations said.
The deal will allow SLB to organize and upgrade PDVSA's vast but outdated databases following years of neglect and a recent cyberattack, according to the
sources.
Venezuela has not published routine oil statistics in more than a decade and the latest annual bulletin released by the oil ministry was in 2015. Except for limited output data reported monthly to OPEC, the lack of information has become a major obstacle to promoting oilfields for investment and tracking core activities like output, refining and exports.
From reservoir characterization to real-time crude production, the contract between PDVSA and SLB will involve data management and provide essential services. The companies have not disclosed the reach of the contract, but the sources said SLB will be able to use new technology, including artificial intelligence, to expand, modernize and make Venezuela's oil data reliable again.
"The agreement's goal is to help PDVSA and the oil ministry to digitize and consolidate all data of the oil industry," one of the sources said, adding the contract also involves technology transfer and training. If a new entrant needs data about an oilfield it is interested in, it can be taken from a cloud, the person added.
Since being the target of a ransomware attack late last year that knocked down applications from email to a key contract administration software, PDVSA has been plagued by information chaos. The company's staff is communicating through rudimentary free-access services like Telegram, while facilities are operating independently of a centralized system, the sources said.
In recent months, PDVSA has managed to patch its main applications, but it needs to migrate systems — particularly its geological and production databases — to new providers and implement modern tracking tools, they added.
"Functionality is in recovery phase, but lots of data were lost due to damages to the servers," one of the sources said. "Some data needs to be rebuilt from paper copies."
CONTRACT FOLLOWS YEARS OF DELAYED PAYMENTS
Many other details of the contract with SLB, including duration and payment mechanism, remain unknown.
Payments in kind, including with crude, were discussed with SLB as part of negotiations. Any money transfers are expected to be complicated, with the U.S. in control of all revenue from the country's oil exports, leaving Venezuela little room to negotiate.
Last week, Venezuela's oil ministry and the U.S. embassy in Caracas confirmed that an agreement with SLB had been signed with PDVSA to "modernize exploration and production."
SLB's head for Mexico, Central America and Venezuela, William Antonio, said last week at a conference in Houston the contract with PDVSA started immediately after it was signed. The companies have not provided additional details and did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
In 2019, Washington imposed harsh sanctions on Venezuela's energy sector. PDVSA defaulted on billions of dollars in already delayed payments to companies including oilfield service firms such as SLB.
Companies now willing to work with PDVSA are taking precautions to avoid new payment issues, many oil executives have said.
Another major obstacle for any service contract is a myriad of software and application patches PDVSA has installed as workarounds due to sanctions preventing U.S. technology providers from working with Venezuela's state companies.
Despite the challenges, SLB is set to give a first external look to PDVSA's main statistics, which Venezuela has guarded intensively in recent decades.
(Reporting by Marianna Párraga in Houston, Ana Isabel Martínez in Mexico City, Deisy Buitrago in Caracas and Mircely Guanipa in Maracay; Editing by Nathan Crooks and David Gregorio)
