Venezuela or the curse of petroleum

D.A.

Venezuela is the country with the largest oil reserves in the Americas. According to official figures for 2011, the country's certified reserves are 287,000 million barrels.

Despite the abundance of this important and strategic natural resource, Venezuela is experiencing a strong political and economic crisis with profound social effects.

The relatively easy availability of financial funds from oil led to Venezuela to not developing productive agricultural infrastructure to meet the needs of its 30 million inhabitants. This was also applied to many industial activities, both agroindustrial and pharmaceutical.

To this we must add the vulnerability of oil refining due to the fact that several PDVSA refineries are in the USA.

Apart from the political problems, which are very important, the Venezuelan crisis has its roots in the absence of effective plans to reduce dependence on imported products,

The oil resources

The deposits on which the oil extraction was based historically are located in the west, mainly in the basin of Lake Maracaibo and surroundings. The oil in these western watersheds is conventional and lightweight. The reserves of these basins are superior to 70,000 million barrels.

There are also important reserves in the eastern region, particularly in the Orinoco basin. There the quality of the oil is heavy and extra heavy with abundant sulfur. This basin contains 200,000 million barrels that would constitute 75% of the total reserves of the country.

In addition to the oil reserves previously mentioned, Venezuela has significant gas reserves estimated to amount to 8.287 billion cubic meters.

Despite these resources, the country, which was politically dependent on the US for decades and was permeated by deep episodes of corruption and social inequality, entered into a process of socialization and nationalization of the economy and political alignment with other Third World nations. in open opposition to the policies of the USA, This position earned it several sanctions that were deeply felt in the local economy and the quality of life of the population worsened. Today Venezuela is a tense society, it is very difficult to obtain agreements between the different protagonists and sectors, which is taken advantage of by various international political forces, including the USA, which have intensified the existing sanctions, Today they assumes an undisguised strategy of blockade, hindering the exploitation and export of oil resources.

Reproduced from the book "Geology and Geopolitics of Oil and Natural Gas", Danilo Antón, Piriguazú Ediciones