Venezuelan oil production boosted - president

Strike-paralysed Venezuela – which has been partly blamed for rising oil prices – is now managing to produce 1.32 million barrels of oil per day, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said today.

Chavez, who is in Porto Alegre to participate in the World Social Forum, told reporters Venezuela should manage to boost production to 2.7 million barrels within a month. He said that amount was what OPEC has determined the country should produce.

Production in the world’s fifth largest oil exporter has been badly hurt by the 56-day-old strike aimed at ousting Chavez.

But the oil industry, which provides half of the government’s income and a third of Venezuela’s gross domestic product, is slowly reviving.

The government claims most of the 40,000 employees at the state oil monopoly, Petrels de Venezuela SA, have abandoned the strike and previously said output had reached 1 million barrels per day.

Striking executives put the figure at 855,000 and deny most employees are back to work. Output was 3 million barrels a day before the strike. It reached a low of less than 200,000 last month which saw international oil prices rise.