By Marianna Parraga

Feb 9 (Reuters) – Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA has reversed most of the production cuts it had ordered at its own fields and joint ventures in the country’s main crude oil region, the Orinoco belt, boosting the country’s total output by nearly a million barrels per day (bpd), sources close to the operations said.

The OPEC country had to cut crude oil production, its main source of income, after an oil embargo imposed by Washington in December to pressure President Nicolas Maduro, who was captured in early January and led to the US-supervised government of interim President Delcy Rodriguez.

The tight US blockade left millions of barrels of exportable crude stuck in the country’s tanks and land ships, forcing production cuts that PDVSA has recently begun to reverse as exports bounce back to near normal levels.

The Orinoco region is now producing just over 500,000 bpd after increases over the weekend at several projects, the sources said, more than 100,000 bpd above early January.

Trading companies Trafigura and Vitol received initial licenses from the United States last month to export and market millions of barrels of Venezuelan oil as part of a $2 billion flagship supply deal between Caracas and Washington.

The U.S. Treasury Department has also issued blanket licenses in recent weeks that broadly allow U.S. companies to export Venezuelan oil and supply fuel to the country, which are expected to be followed by other authorizations to explore and produce oil in the country, separate sources said.

The U.S. licenses have helped untangle exports, freeing up crude and fuel that was in inventory, providing much-needed diluents for Venezuela’s extra-heavy oil and allowing PDVSA to ramp up production, particularly in the Orinoco belt, the sources said.

(Reporting by Reuters Staff and Marianna Parraga; Editing by Nathan Crooks and Nick Zieminski)