Venezuela suffers decline in oil industry
A putrid smell hangs over the black-stained shores of Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, which highlights the pronounced decline of the country’s once enviable oil industry, reports AFP
Here, as elsewhere in what was once Latin America’s richest nation, Economic difficulties drive much of the debate ahead of July 28 electionsin which President Nicolás Maduro will seek a third six-year term.
Much of Venezuela’s economic collapse, driven in part by a sharp drop in international oil prices after 2014, It happened under Maduro’s supervisionwho has been in office since 2013. However, many Venezuelans, including Vicunablame US sanctions for the dire situation.
More than a century ago the Basin of Maracaiborich in hydrocarbons, was the cradle of a business that transformed Venezuela into one of the world’s top 10 oil producers, driving a decades-long period of incredible prosperity.
The country, which has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, produced 3.5 million barrels a day in 2008, USA its main client.
But in just 12 years that figure had dropped to less than half a million barrels following the nationalisation of the industry and a crippling, months-long strike at state oil company PDVSA in protest against then-President Hugo Chavez.
Chavez said goodbye to thousands of PDVSA employees and managerswho, according to observers, were mainly replaced by non-expert loyalists.