Venezuela is in talks with the global energy giant Siemens Energy AG to repair power plants as part of a government plan to rebuild a crumbling electricity grid plagued by constant blackouts and a lack of maintenance.
By Yahoo Finance – Fabiola Zerpa
Aug 23, 2022
Siemens is working with the government on potential contracts aimed at repairing gas- and diesel-burning generation facilities that serve the capital, Caracas, as well as those that supply electricity to infrastructure used by the oil industry, according to the company’s business manager in the country, Eric Soto.
The German company was granted licenses by the US Treasury to work with the state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA, which owns the plants, via third parties and with the power utility Corpoelec, Soto said. It marks the rare deal in which an international company is prepared to work with President Nicolás Maduro’s government, which is under stiff US economic sanctions.
The repairs could boost power generation at two plants that sum up 1,000 megawatts capacity for Caracas, helping it overcome regular blackouts and years of rationing, as well as improve power supply in oil-producing areas hit by outages.
Neither the US Treasury or PDVSA responded to messages seeking comment.
As Venezuela’s economy begins a slow rebound, Maduro is attempting to rebuild the country’s generation system with a plan to invest around $1.5 billion to recover some 9,000 megawatts of production by 2025, according to a Corpoelec document seen by Bloomberg. The grid, highly dependent on the huge Guri hydroelectric facility in southern Venezuela that produces as much as 80% of the power, has been ravaged by years of mismanagement.
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