The Washington Post is reporting that the Trump Administration is threatening to embargo Venezuelan oil, in what could be another blow to an extremely fragile economy.
Known for the world’s largest crude reserves, and once thriving oil and gas industry, the Venezuelan government cannot seem to get the industry to work again. Many of the countries most productive extraction sites have been idle for several months, or paralyzed by lack of maintenance and broken rigs.
There is a consensus in this article and several members of Oilconvo that the PDVSA (the Venezuelan state-owned oil and gas company) is in shambles and likely going to fail.
Rex Tillerson, former Exxon CEO and current Secretary of State, is guiding the president on policies that would restrict oil sales from Venezuela. Such an embargo could cause the country to collapse, and likely will strengthen the relationship between Venezuela and Russia and China.
Venezuela reported to OPEC that its production had improved to 1.77 million barrels a day in January, up from 1.62 million in December. But an analysis published by OPEC, drawing on secondary sources — including the U.S. Energy Information Administration — showed actual production had fallen in January, to 1.6 million barrels a day.
“Venezuela suffered a decrease in oil production provoked by a plan to leave the country with no resources, [orchestrated] by managers of PDVSA who are now behind bars,” Maduro said as reported by The Washington Post. He added, “We will, respecting OPEC quotas, recover PDVSA’s production.”
