According to The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Venezuela is the country with the largest proven reserves of crude oil in the world with 296.501 million barrels. Alarm! Alarm! Venezuela’s Gasoline Shortage Worsens.
The shortage of fuel for vehicles, individuals and cargo that is registered in most regions of the country will worsen in the coming days. Warned sources from the oil industry.
Iván Freites, secretary of the United Federation of Oil Workers of Venezuela, said that the shortage of gasoline that has been reported in various regions of the country will worsen mainly because of the situation of Venezuelan refineries that refine at 10% of their capacity.
Media reports and users through social networks account for the long lines of vehicles waiting to supply their cars.
In the state of Zulia (west), the main oil-producing state, users have reported waiting up to 48 hours at gas stations.
While in states like Mérida, users have reported up to 6 days of waiting to get gasoline for their vehicles.
“They keep only the capital region supplied with fuel, but at any moment what happened with electricity is going to happen,” Freites told Efe.
Iván Freites
What about the Electricity failures
Electricity failures are constant in Venezuela. A country plunged into a serious economic crisis despite its wealth of natural resources and having the largest proven oil reserves in the world.
The union leader today described the state of the refineries as “serious” due to the lack of maintenance and the effects of the collapse of the electrical system.
Freites warned that the impossibility of placing on the international market the inventories of fuel oil (a residual) is limiting the storage capacity and, consequently, the volumes to be processed in the Amuay and Cardón plants, which do not operate at their maximum capacity.
According to Freites, the refining plants owned by the state-owned “Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA)” could process 1,300,000 barrels per day, but currently refine 120,000 barrels per day, less than 10% of the installed capacity.
Rafael Quiróz Serrano, an economist and oil expert, estimated that the refineries process 20% of their installed capacity. Some 320,000 barrels/day.
In any case, Quiróz Serrano said that the current levels of gasoline production do not cover all of the 1,765 gas stations in the country, which has a fleet of about 5 million vehicles, of which 1.7 million do not circulate for lack of spare parts.
The option of gasoline imports, which has been used by PDVSA authorities in the past to mitigate the fall of refining, is limited by the sanctions imposed by the Administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
But, the country with the largest proven reserves of crude oil in the world should supply the country’s internal demand. Don’t you think so?
For Serano, the possibility is latent that “Venezuela will fall into a situation of chaos when it comes to fuels”.
Consequences of “the blackouts and not of the sanctions from USA”.
Ángel Alvarado, economist and deputy, affirmed that if only 500,000 barrels of oil are being produced in the country. It is a consequence of “the blackouts and not of the sanctions”.
Quiróz Serrano put current production at 717,000 barrels a day. He pointed out that “the drop in production continues, even though the fall was slowed down”.
Zulia produced 1,780,000 barrels of oil a day in 1998. Currently about 280,000 barrels are extracted and areas like the Urdaneta Field today do not produce a single barrel.
For Alvarado, the precarious situation of the electric industry evidenced by a series of service cuts throughout the country “has thrown oil production to the ground”.
He said that this will imply that “there is going to be not only a lack of fuel. But that the Venezuelan economy is going to begin to collapse much faster”. Faster than what is being seen.
According to economist José Toro Hardy, PDVSA is the company that contributed most to the growth of the Venezuelan economy. Today it is the company that contributes the most to the impoverishment of the country.
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