"We're at nearly 1mn b/d now and the goal in 2020 is to reach 2mn b/d," Maduro declared today in the speech before the National Constituent Assembly (ANC).
Argus estimates that Venezuela produced around 820,000 b/d of crude in December 2019, down from 1.15mn b/d a year earlier.
Venezuela's production has steadily declined since the 1990s level of more than 3mn b/d, plummeting to just 650,000 b/d in September 2019 as a result of US sanctions that have crippled the state-owned industry. The oil and financial sanctions are aimed at toppling Maduro in favor of US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido.
In today's address, Maduro asserted that the government's pseudo-cryptocurrency known as the petro has been designated the official primary currency for all transactions by state-owned entities, including national oil company PdV.
The petro's designation as PdV's primary currency means that, on paper at least, all exports, imports, financial services and oil services would be priced, invoiced, collected and paid in the digital instrument. But Maduro said payment would also be accepted in dollars, euros, yuan or rubles.
He said state-owned industrial companies are already selling iron, steel, bauxite, aluminum and gold in petros, which Maduro created by decree in December 2017.
The instrument is nominally pegged to the price of a barrel of Venezuelan crude, and backed by the country's reserves. There is no evidence that the instrument has been applied in concrete transactions. State-owned steelmaker Sidor and state-owned aluminum smelters Venalum and Alcasa are all or mostly idle.
The currency announcements coincide with negotiations between the government and obscure overseas entities, some with ties to Venezuelan exiles, for upstream joint ventures and financial transactions, including a proposed petro-denominated bond issuance in a jurisdiction unaffected by US financial sanctions, such as Russia, China, Turkey or Cyprus.
In today's speech, Maduro decreed the sale of 4.5mn bl of undeveloped Orinoco heavy crude reserves priced in petros, plus the sale in petros of 1mn tons of iron briquettes by the state-owned CVG. He did not name the buyers or the dates of the transactions.
As reported by Argus last year, Maduro confirmed that all jet fuel sales will be priced in petros, or alternatively dollars, euros, yuan or rubles.
US sanctions include a prohibition on petro transactions.
Maduro acknowledged that US sanctions hurt the country in 2019, but he said they have failed because he remains in power and the worst of the crisis has passed.
PdV with its allies have overcome early bottlenecks caused by the sanctions, including loss of access to international credit and tanker shortages, Maduro said.
"We reversed hyperinflation induced from abroad, and I have faith that inflation will continue falling despite the daily attacks from abroad against our currency," Maduro said. Venezuela's own traditional currency, the bolivar, is nearly worthless and has been effectively eclipsed by the dollar in many commercial transactions inside the country.
Venezuela's 1999 constitution requires the president's annual state of the republic speech to be presented before the National Assembly, but Maduro has boycotted the opposition-controlled legislature since 2016 in favor of the rubber-stamp ANC. Guaido's leadership of the assembly, ratified in a chaotic internal election on 5 January, underpins his claim to an interim presidency, first declared a year ago this month. Most Western countries recognize Guaido as president, in place of Maduro.
