Monday 17 August 2020

Crude oil production in Venezuela is declining rapidly and is currently around 300,000 barrels per day. However, global markets have not been affected by the loss of Venezuela’s oil due to oversupply, as there is ample production capacity around the world to meet the recovery in global oil demand that has started since May 2020.

Venezuela’s oil production in 2009 was 3 million barrels per day, but it declined continuously to 2 million barrels per day in 2017, then fell to 1.5 million in 2018, and continued to drop to 0.9 million only in 2019, and some sources say that it has tumbled in recent months to less From a quarter of a million barrels per day.

The decline in Venezuela’s production is a logical result of decades of decline and disintegration, but it has been exacerbated recently by the collapse in oil prices caused in 2020 in the circumstances of the outbreak of the Corona virus, and also due to US sanctions.

Attempts to raise production collide with the deteriorating state of the infrastructure, the ongoing US sanctions, and the decline in global demand for oil.

It is worth noting that Venezuela possesses the largest oil reserves in the world, and its proven reserves are estimated at about 304 billion barrels by the end of 2019. It is one of the five main countries that established the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries group in 1960, along with Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Now, it is considered the lowest producer of oil among OPEC members after Equatorial Guinea.