Venezuela importing oil as its oil industry collapses under epic mismanagement.
How Venezuela has resorted to importing oil as its core industry faces collapse
‘They are importing barrels that cost $80 to $90 and selling them at $0’
Paula Rincon
Despite having the greatest oil reserves in the world, Venezuela’s government is being forced to spend millions of dollars a day importing crude to prop up its ailing industry.
Petrol remains the only cheap commodity left in Venezuela amid the collapse of most of its economy, but the oil industry is now also struggling to meet basic domestic demands.
Experts say the industry is operating below 40 per cent of its potential output. Last month, the International Energy Agency reported that Venezuela is and will probably remain “the biggest risk factor” in a global supply crisis that may soon tip the market into deficit.
The speed of decline in production has been vertiginous, with output falling by 100,000 barrels a day in February, according to Bloomberg. The Central University of Venezuela says production is reaching its lowest point in 70 years.
Most of the enormous oil reserves Venezuela has access to – almost 25 per cent of all the oil controlled by the world’s biggest producers – is heavy crude, and needs to be diluted with lighter oil to become a commercially viable product.
In 2016, with its own industry failing to deliver, Venezuela imported diluents for the first time in its history. In the two years since, those imports have grown to as many as 200,000 barrels a day, mostly from the US, according to Francisco Monaldi, fellow in Latin American energy policy at Rice University in Texas.
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/venezuela-oil-imports-economy-industry-heavy-refining-efficiency-a8307161.html
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