S&P Global Platts, an independent energy sector analytics company, revealed yesterday that the collapse of the Venezuelan oil industry continues unabated with no bottom in sight.
In an article titled “OPEC Guide”, the company said that Venezuelan oil production has fallen by 580,000 barrels per day from this time last year, and that OPEC likely expects the “sustained declines” to continue.
Crisis-wracked Venezuela’s oil production continued to shrink, plunging for the 10th straight month to 1.36 million b/d. That is a 580,000 b/d year-on-year drop and a 910,000 b/d fall in two years, according to survey data. It is also the lowest in the 30-year history of the Platts OPEC survey, except for December 2002 and January 2003, when a strike severely curtailed production.
Platt’s assessment coincides with a piece published in Forbes last night, which warns that Venezuela’s oil production is “headed toward zero”. Citing a study by an energy sector analysis firm called GlobalData, the article suggests that Venezuelan oil production could fall to a mere one billion barrels per day by the end of the year, down from the three million barrels per day that PDVSA pumped out in 2011.
PDVSA’s ongoing woes will likely prove cataclysmic should they continue to worsen, since Venezuela earns virtually all of its foreign income from oil sales.
Once one of the leading oil companies on the planet, PDVSA is today a dying shell of its former self. The company has been plagued by mismanagement and rampant corruption under twenty years of Bolivarian rule.
The National Assembly estimates that corrupt regime officials stole at least $11 billion from PDVSA between 2004 and 2014 alone.
Earlier today, Maduro tweeted a message in support of PDVSA:
I fully trust that alongside the oil workers we are going win a gigantic victory and that we will leave behind the history of shame, treason and corruption. Long live our socialist PDVSA!
Colombia Ends Census of Venezuelan Migrants
The government of Colombia successfully completed a census of Venezuelan migrants in the country yesterday, which it undertook starting in April of this year in an attempt to quantify the scope of the migrant crisis.
According to the Colombian government, the census was conducted purely for statistical purposes, meaning that Venezuelans who admitted to being in the country illegally would not face backlash for doing so.
Benjamin Palacios, a 55 year old man who registered with the census yesterday, told a newspaper called La Opinion de Cucuta yesterday that he was also planning on registering his wife and two children. He said:
Our wish is to come live in Cucuta, since things in our town got really difficult due to the lack of food.
Ibis Gutierrez, a single mother of three, arrived in the city from Valencia, Carabobo state. She told the newspaper:
My children don’t have a future in Valencia. There’s no medicine, and I don’t have a job with which to support them.
In early May, the International Red Cross said that it estimates that one million Venezuelans have escaped into Colombia since July of last year.
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