Venezuela wants to be known for high oil production, adviser says

Venezuela wants to be known as a country with one of the highest oil production levels and not just one with the highest oil reserves, the country's top economic adviser Calixto Ortega said on Wednesday.

"We know that the reference for Venezuela is that (it is) the country with the biggest oil reserves. And we want to stop being known about this, and we want to be known as one of the countries with the highest production levels," Ortega said at the World Government Summit in Dubai.

Venezuela has the world's largest estimated oil reserves but its crude output remains at a fraction of capacity due to decades of mismanagement, lack of investment and sanctions, official data shows.

The United States, which has long had sanctions in place on Venezuela, said after seizing Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro last month in a raid in Caracas that it would control the country's oil sales indefinitely.

"Economically speaking, we are, you know, we are solid and ready for investment" Ortega said, adding that companies abroad and in the U.S. were waiting for sanctions to be lifted before committing to investing in Venezuela.

Venezuela's oil exports rose to some 800,000 barrels per day (bpd) in January from 498,000 bpd in December, after the seizure of Maduro and the ending of a U.S. oil blockade, shipping data showed. Washington had imposed the oil embargo on the country in December to pressure Maduro and seized seven tankers.

-Reporting by Gursimran Kaur and Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Hugh Lawson/Reuters