(Energy Analytics Institute, 10.Oct.2020) — Venezuela continues to suffer from severe shortages of fuel from gasoline to diesel and across the entire country despite the recent arrival of three Iranian tankers with manly gasoline supplies.
Fuel shortages continue across the OPEC-member country since the second shipment this year of Iranian gasoline imports only help to partially resolve scarcity issues, but don’t resolve the root causes.
Venezuela’s massive 1.3 million barrel per day refining capacity at six units owned by state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) continues to operate in a range that fluctuates between 15% and 20%. At times the volumes have approached nil.
The overall lower rates have been tied to a lack of maintenance, equipment and parts, reduced domestic oil supply as well as a massive brain drain of white-collar and blue-collar workers fleeing low wages, rampant crime, unsafe working environments and continued political and military appointees across the upstream, downstream and midstream sectors of Venezuela’s once enviable hydrocarbon sector.
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Venezuela, home to the world’s largest crude oil reserves, continues to suffer economic, political and humanitarian crises, which have devastated its economy and seen nearly 5 million Venezuelans flee the country for better lives from countries as near as Colombia and as far as Europe and Russia, among other destinations.
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By Piero Stewart. © Energy Analytics Institute (EAI). All Rights Reserved.
