OREANDA-NEWS. November 14, 2016. Venezuelan state-owned PdV's inability to reverse a year-long slide in crude production and a persistently oversupplied oil market augur more economic hardship in 2017 for a country that depends on oil exports for practically all of its hard currency revenue.

Venezuela's crude oil production dropped 338,000 b/d or almost 13pc over the first 10 months of 2016, from 2.654mn b/d at end-2015 to 2.316mn b/d in October, according to official figures communicated directly to Opec by the energy ministry and published in the November issue of the group's Monthly Market Report.

Venezuela's official crude output in October was 18,000 b/d below September's reported production of 2.334mn b/d.

The energy ministry reported that Venezuela's weekly export price closed at \\$37.46/bl for the week ending 11 November, down \\$1.68/bl from the previous week.

Venezuela's year-to-date average export price was \\$34.02/bl as of 11 November, compared with full-year average prices of \\$44.65/bl in 2015 and \\$88.42/bl in 2014, respectively, the energy ministry said.

The economic bind coincides with the looming breakdown of a fragile Vatican-brokered political dialogue between the government of President Nicolas Maduro and some members of the opposition.

The combination once again threatens to escalate tensions and spark potentially violent clashes.

"The truce that we agreed to, at the request of the Vatican, in order to install this dialogue is over," national coordinator of the democratic unity coalition (MUD) Jesus Torrealba said today. "A struggle is coming. There's no contradiction between struggle and dialogue, which is the continuation of our struggle in another scenario."

If the government does not free all political prisoners and revive a presidential recall referendum process that was thwarted last month by government-controlled courts, the dialogue will be deemed over by the MUD, Torrealba said.

Maduro vowed earlier this week that "neither votes nor bullets" would drive him from the presidency. Senior leaders of the ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV) such as former national assembly president Diosdado Cabello declared that no prisoners would be freed, and discarded a referendum or early general elections.

Caracas is hoping Opec countries and non-Opec Russia will strengthen oil prices by agreeing to cut or at least freeze production at a 30 November meeting in Vienna.

But even a significant price spike would do little to ameliorate Venezuela's profound economic malaise in the short term, and allow PdV to invest in its core upstream and downstream operations.

Maduro recently pledged to root out "corrupt" officials and "traitors" at state-owned firms, including PdV.

He has previously praised PdV chief executive and energy minister Eulogio Del Pino, but as the only remaining civilian heading a state-owned entity, he is seen as vulnerable.