No, seriously, this is interesting. I missed it, but look. Back in 2010, I wrote:
The venture expects to pump 240,000 barrels a day after spending $8.3 billion to develop the Junin 5 block, Ramirez said. First oil will be pumped in 2013, Eni said today on its Web site. It will reach full production in 2016, Scaroni said.
And then earlier this year, some smart guy named Anatoly wrote:
Eni SpA (ENI), Italy’s largest oil company, said its joint venture with Petroleos de Venezuela SA has started producing oil from the Junin-5 block, advancing Venzeula’s plans to develop the world’s largest reserves.
Production from the block in the Orinoco Belt will reach 15,000 barrels a day by the end of the year and 75,000 barrels in 2015, the Rome-based company said in a statement today. The company had previously estimated it would reach 75,000 barrels of output from Junin-5 this year.
I have a lot of fun around here with PDVSA, but if the Eni venture is on target, that makes the current meetings between PDVSA and Eni actually vaguely interesting.
Setty's notebook 
Hello Setty, you state : Eni SpA (ENI), Italy’s largest oil company, said its joint venture with Petroleos de Venezuela SA has started producing oil from the Junin-5 block, advancing Venezuela’s plans to develop the world’s largest reserves. Production from the block in the Orinoco Belt will reach 15,000 barrels a day by the end of the year and 75,000 barrels in 2015, the Rome-based company said in a statement today. The company had previously estimated it would reach 75,000 barrels of output from Junin-5 this year.
If they predicted 75,000 bop this year but are actually producing 15,000 bopd, this is far from meeting the target. Or, am I missing something?
I would add that 15,000 bopd is peanuts in the context of Faja resources
They said they would start production in 2013. They did.
Oh… OK
The issue is not when ENI started production; only when ENI will get kicked out of the joint venture, and the ENI share is sold to some Russian or Chinese company, and ENI will be at ICJ asking to recover lost money.
Insanity is repeating the same error, and expecting different answers.
Also, there is a very important point being missed here, oil upgraders. The late Oliver Campbell made the point that the only way oil production in the Faja is gonna increase is through the construction of new oil upgraders. If none are being built, you can only push through so much oil into existing oil upgraders, whose max capacity is 500,000 to 600,000 bpd. No construction of upgraders, no increased capacity. As far as I know, there are ‘0’ oil upgraders currently under construction. 0.
Ramirez made the same point last week. He said without upgrades they can’t boost production and help pay for investment costs with that production. He also said Pdvsa has a growing problem exporting heavy cruces that have been blended with lights (at Sinovensa?) but need to have the naphtha and other things stripped from the crude to make it more exportable. Sorry to hear Oliver is gone. He was a good man.
ENi and Repsol execs on 13 November in Caracas said total combined production of all the new Orinoco upstream ventures doesn’t reach 5,000 b/d as of end-October. None of them have met their deadlines including ENI. Everyone has announced ‘first oil production’ – except PetroIndependencia (Chevron). But it’s peanuts, way short of official targets for 2013 announced both by Ramirez/PdV and the foreign oil companies. Eni didn’t meet its deadline. Like the other four JV’s, Eni announced first oil production to make Ramirez happy, go with the flow, if you will.
Also, the crude bring produced is being carried by tanker truck to Jose from production areas where there are, quite literally, no access roads suitable for the trucks – a fact admitted last week by Ramirez.
wow
Do you have any later numbers? I still see only few thousand barels per day from this venture. How will this ever get to 100 K barres per day? who will upgrade?