On the back of the various challenges which Venezuela’s oil and gas sector has had to face in recent years, not least the protracted United States embargo on the country’s oil exports and more recently the explosive corruption-related revelations in the sector, the acceleration of the country’s oil exports with the critical support of the US oil giant, Chevron, would appear to have hit a proverbial wall.
Last week the international energy news site Oil Price.com reported that a critical initiative designed to accelerate the country’s oil exports is threatened on account of Caracas’ inability to meet the cost of dredging, a critical oil export inlet that is vital to the overall execution of the project. A May 5 Oil Price.com article said that moving ahead with the oil export push requires the dredging of Lake Maracaibo but that there may be problems associated with Venezuela’s ability meet the cost of the equipment necessary for the execution of the dredging exercise.