Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, yet its petroleum industry—once among the most productive on earth—has been reduced to a fraction of its former capacity after years of mismanagement, underinvestment, and international sanctions.
The long-running gap between Venezuela’s vast oil wealth and its collapsing production has taken on new urgency after President Donald Trump announced on Jan. 3 that U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and that Washington would temporarily run the country while U.S. oil companies move in to rebuild its failing energy infrastructure.
“As everyone knows, the oil business in Venezuela has been a bust, a total bust, for a long period of time,” Trump said at a Jan. 3 press conference in Florida. “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”…
Venezuela’s Broken Oil Industry and Trump’s Plan to Rebuild It After Maduro’s Ouster
