Who owns and operates the Petrocedeno upgrader and what are its recent production figures?
Executive summary
Petrocedeño (also spelled PetroCedeno or Petrocedeño), originally the Sincor upgrader in Venezuela’s Orinoco Basin, is owned and operated today by state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) after it acquired the remaining minority stakes from Total and Equinor; the facility’s nameplate capacity is roughly 200,000–202,000 barrels per day (b/d) of extra‑heavy crude feedstock and about 180,000 b/d of upgraded syncrude, but actual recent output has been a fraction of capacity and has varied from roughly 14,000 b/d in 2021 to intermittent restarts at higher rates in 2019 (118,000 b/d) depending on feedstock and maintenance constraints [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. Who owns Petrocedeño now — the ownership timeline and context
Petrocedeño began as a joint venture: PDVSA held a majority 60% interest while France’s Total (TotalEnergies) and Norway’s Equinor held roughly 30% and 10% respectively under the Sincor/Petrocedeño setup, but in a formal move announced in 2023 PDVSA acquired 100% of the joint venture and became sole owner, a change widely reported by Enerdata and contemporary coverage describing PDVSA’s assumption of full control and the need for significant investment to revive the upgrader [4] [1] [3].
2. Who operates the plant — operator responsibilities and on‑the‑ground control
Operational control has followed ownership: industry profiles and reporting consistently identify PDVSA as the operator of Petrocedeño in recent years, with state executives receiving OPEC visits at the facility and PDVSA reporting restarts and incidents directly — indicating PDVSA’s de facto and de jure operational role even when foreign partners were present earlier [5] [6] [7].
3. Nameplate capacity — what the plant is built to do
Technical and market profiles place Petrocedeño’s design capacity at roughly 200,000–202,000 b/d of extra‑heavy crude feedstock, with downstream conversion to approximately 180,000 b/d of 32° API syncrude (figures repeated across Argus and Energy Analytics Institute background reporting describing the former Sincor project’s scale) — these are engineering/nameplate numbers, not the steady‑state production levels achieved in recent years [2] [8].
4. Recent actual production — a sharp gap between capacity and output
Recent operational history shows wide swings: after a restart in February 2019 Petrocedeño ran at about 118,000 b/d — roughly 58% of capacity — before naphtha shortages and other constraints forced interruptions (S&P reporting) [4]. By mid‑2021 the upgrader’s output had collapsed to very low levels, with one report citing about 14,000 b/d in May 2021 amid partner exits and underinvestment [3]. Subsequent years have seen intermittent restarts, ongoing maintenance issues, and at least one significant fire reported in late 2025 that PDVSA confirmed, underscoring that throughput since the PDVSA takeover has been highly variable and generally well below nameplate [9] [7].
5. Why production has lagged — logistics, feedstock and investment constraints
Industry reporting and PDVSA technical notes point to a combination of factors that explain the gulf between capacity and realized output: chronic naphtha shortages required for the upgrading process, years of underinvestment after sanctions and partner exits, equipment deterioration and workforce losses, and the need for substantial capital expenditure to rejuvenate wells and upgrading units — analysts and PDVSA statements used in reporting warn that restoring and sustaining high throughput will demand significant capex and operational fixes [4] [1] [10].
6. What can’t be concluded from available reporting
Public reporting through 2025 provides clear ownership and capacity figures and documents episodic production data points (e.g., 118,000 b/d in Feb. 2019 and ~14,000 b/d in May 2021), but there is no single authoritative continuous production time series in the supplied sources that states a definitive 2024–2026 average throughput for Petrocedeño; therefore any precise “current” daily production number beyond these documented snapshots would require up‑to‑date PDVSA operational reports or third‑party flow confirmations not included here [4] [3] [1].