{"id":23309,"date":"2017-03-24T13:58:12","date_gmt":"2017-03-24T18:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=23309"},"modified":"2017-03-24T13:58:12","modified_gmt":"2017-03-24T18:58:12","slug":"venezuela-in-dire-straits-as-oil-production-falls-further","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=23309","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela In Dire Straits As Oil Production Falls Further"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/oilprice.com\/Energy\/Energy-General\/Venezuela-In-Dire-Straits-As-Oil-Production-Falls-Further.html\">Venezuela In Dire Straits As Oil Production Falls Further<\/a><\/h3>\n<picture><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"singleArticle__articleImage\" title=\"Oil Pipe\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.oilprice.com\/a\/img\/content\/article\/718x300\/781f4fdc09c03ff064619419e4872039.jpg\" alt=\"Oil Pipe\" \/><\/picture>\n<div id=\"article-content\" class=\"wysiwyg clear\">\n<p>Venezuela\u2019s economic crisis continues to deepen. The South American OPEC member is thought to be sitting on nearly\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eia.gov\/beta\/international\/analysis.cfm?iso=VEN\">300 billion barrels<\/a>\u00a0of oil, far more than any other country in the world, including Saudi Arabia (estimated at 268 billion barrels). But the economy has been in freefall for several years, with conditions continuing to deteriorate.<\/p>\n<p>The economic crisis has morphed into a full-blown humanitarian disaster. Just this week the Wall Street Journal\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/venezuelan-women-in-labor-cross-to-colombia-to-give-birth-1490261402\">reported<\/a>\u00a0on Venezuelan women traveling to neighboring Colombia to give birth because the state of Venezuela\u2019s hospitals are horrific, with shortages of medical supplies and trained staff. Infant mortality is worse than in war-ravaged Syria.<\/p>\n<p>Food and other essential items are also painfully scarce, leading to long lines at shops. Tensions run high because there is not enough to go around.<\/p>\n<p>Now even gasoline is running low in Caracas, Reuters\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/venezuela-gasoline-idUSL2N1H00KW\">reports<\/a>, an unusual development for the capital city.<\/p>\n<p>Gas shortages suggests problems for Venezuela\u2019s state-owned oil company PDVSA are deepening. The government depends on oil production for more than 90 percent of its export revenues, and the collapse of oil prices back in 2014, coupled with a long-term slide in output, have ruined the company\u2019s finances.<\/p>\n<p>That, in turn, puts even more pressure on PDVSA. A shortage of cash is straining the company\u2019s ability to import refined products as it falls short on bills to suppliers. PDVSA needs to import refined products to dilute its heavy crude oil, but without enough cash, tankers are sitting at ports unable to unload their cargoes. Reuters also says that\u00a0<em>\u201cmany tankers are idle because PDVSA cannot pay for hull cleaning, inspections, and other port services<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Venezuela In Dire Straits As Oil Production Falls Further Venezuela\u2019s economic crisis continues to deepen. The South American OPEC member is thought to be sitting on nearly\u00a0300 billion barrels\u00a0of oil, far more than any other country in the world, including Saudi Arabia (estimated at 268 billion barrels). But the economy has been in freefall for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[6010,595,1810,9993,600,851],"class_list":["post-23309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","tag-nick-cunningham","tag-oil-production","tag-oil-reserves","tag-oilprce-com","tag-opec","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23309"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23310,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23309\/revisions\/23310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}