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How Socialism Wiped Out Venezuela's Spectacular Oil Wealth
Reason ^ | February 1, 2021 | Andrés Figueredo Thomson

Posted on 02/01/2021 11:10:21 AM PST by KeyLargo

How Socialism Wiped Out Venezuela's Spectacular Oil Wealth

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves. It's out of gasoline.

Andrés Figueredo Thomson | 2.1.2021 12:50 PM

Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves and yet the country has run out of gasoline. The socialist government has lost the capacity to extract oil from the ground or refine it into a usable form. The industry's gradual deterioration was 18 years in the making, tracing back to then-President Hugo Chávez's 2003 decision to fire the oil industry's most experienced engineers in an act of petty political retribution.

The near-total collapse in the nation's oil output in the ensuing years is a stark reminder that the most valuable commodity isn't a natural resource, but the human expertise to put it to productive use.

"At this moment Venezuela is living through its worst nightmare," said Luis Pedro España, a professor of sociology at Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas, who has studied the nation's economic collapse. "We are witnessing the end of Venezuela as a petro-state."

Gasoline shortages have crippled the economy, made travel within the country prohibitively expensive, and it has increased prices at grocery stores. Shortages and price restrictions have given rise to a vibrant black market.

"Drivers who operate gas-powered busses prefer to keep them parked so that they can suck out the gas and later resell it," says Andrés, a public bus operator in Caracas, who asked that we only use his first name.

(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Government
KEYWORDS: bidenvoters; democrats; energy; socialism; venezuela
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1 posted on 02/01/2021 11:10:22 AM PST by KeyLargo
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Venezuela 2.0
Coming soon to an america near you


2 posted on 02/01/2021 11:12:17 AM PST by dsrtsage (Complexity is merely simplicity lacking imagination)
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To: KeyLargo

Most of their oil is what can best be described as tar. But I can be refined to make gasoline.


3 posted on 02/01/2021 11:12:37 AM PST by crusty old prospector
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To: KeyLargo

Actually, that oil was **replaced by Canadian Tar Sands oil** - this is why the Keystone pipeline is a big deal.


4 posted on 02/01/2021 11:14:28 AM PST by ASOC (This space for rent)
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To: KeyLargo

Biden’s Amerika.
Coming to a gas station near you.


5 posted on 02/01/2021 11:15:00 AM PST by ProudDeplorable (Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty. ~ Ronald Reagan)
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To: dsrtsage
Obviously, they should learn to code, drive electric vehicles, and become green energy engineers. Then they will be living in a worker's paradise.

~ Sean Penn

6 posted on 02/01/2021 11:16:07 AM PST by Thommas (The snout of the camel is in the tent.)
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To: KeyLargo

The Green New Deal in Action


7 posted on 02/01/2021 11:17:28 AM PST by eyeamok
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To: dsrtsage
> Coming soon to an america near you <

Yes, but no worries. This time it will be different. This time it will work.


8 posted on 02/01/2021 11:18:08 AM PST by Leaning Right (I have already previewed or do not wish to preview this composition.)
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To: KeyLargo

I have a friend who sells equipment to oil, gas, petrochem industries

He last visited Venezuela in 2012. At that time, they had to travel with guards.

I remember him saying the PDVSA refinery they dealt with was a total wreck, terrible management. They decided to stop all contacts with PDVSA. About 6 months later, I recall, that same refinery had an explosion that killed something like 40 people.


9 posted on 02/01/2021 11:18:58 AM PST by PGR88
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To: KeyLargo

States like Texas have to fight every which way to stop Dementia Joe from destroying the great oil economy of Texas.


10 posted on 02/01/2021 11:19:36 AM PST by SmokingJoe
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To: KeyLargo

Next is U.S.A.


11 posted on 02/01/2021 11:20:22 AM PST by Pajamajan ( PRAY FOR OUR NATION. I will never be a peaceful slave in a new Socialist America.)
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To: KeyLargo

And they can’t go back to using horses because they already ate all of them.


12 posted on 02/01/2021 11:22:14 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer”)
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To: crusty old prospector

IIRC, Venezuela’s oil had to be mixed with purchased “light” oil from other producers, so as to make it flowable in pipelines, etc. An old retired well logger told me the light stuff was called diluent.

Anyway, Venezuela got in the habit of not paying the other producers for the diluent, so the Orinoco Heavy literally could not be transported.

Funny how folks want remuneration for their products, and cut off deadbeats that don’t pay.


13 posted on 02/01/2021 11:22:31 AM PST by abb
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To: KeyLargo

Another issue is the people running the Oil Rigs offshore. A good friend of mine from our college years is an electrical engineer that specializes in the controls of the power plants of those offshore rigs. He noted the Venezuelan Government about 15 years ago started getting rid of the highly trained and experienced foreigners running those rigs and replacing them with Venezuelans who had minimal qualifications to fit the job. Operational efficiency bottomed out while accident incidents spiked. He was happy as hell to get transferred to the North Sea.


14 posted on 02/01/2021 11:23:01 AM PST by BBQToadRibs2
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To: ASOC
Actually, that oil was **replaced by Canadian Tar Sands oil** - this is why the Keystone pipeline is a big deal.

Several large US Gulf refineries were engineered to process heavy crude from Venezuela and Mexico. We all know what happened to Venezuelan supply, but Mexico also just announced it intends to reduce exports by 70% over the next two years.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-17/pemex-sees-plunge-in-oil-exports-while-supplying-amlo-refinery

I’m wondering where that oil will now come from?

15 posted on 02/01/2021 11:23:53 AM PST by PGR88
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To: KeyLargo
Yet Sean Penn, Danny Glover and others thought Hugo was the greatest thing since apple pie. They have many photos of them glad-handling and smiling with Chavez. Heard a word from any of Hugo's buddies since the richest nation in South America has become the equivalent of Zimbabwe?

Of course not, they don't even recognize Chavez's successor, Maduro who has continued the growing poverty. Just shows how stupid they are about the socialist ideology.

16 posted on 02/01/2021 11:25:23 AM PST by A Navy Vet (I'm not Islamophobic - I'm Islamo nauseated. Also LGBTQxyz nauseated )
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To: dsrtsage

2 elections. That’s it, the U.S. will no longer exist as a free country.

2 elections.


17 posted on 02/01/2021 11:27:43 AM PST by unixfox (Abolish Slavery, Repeal the 16th Amendment)
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To: KeyLargo
Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves and yet the country has run out of gasoline. The socialist government....

Can there be any clearer statement of the consequences of socialism?

18 posted on 02/01/2021 11:34:02 AM PST by frank ballenger (End vote fraud, harvesting,non-citizen voting & leftist media news censorship or we are finished.)
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To: blueunicorn6

That reminds me: do you know how Venezuelans lighted their homes before candles?


19 posted on 02/01/2021 11:34:25 AM PST by Mr. Lucky
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To: Mr. Lucky

Fireflies?


20 posted on 02/01/2021 11:36:50 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer”)
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