Recent reporting on the pace of recovery by Venezuela’s oil industry from the havoc wreaked on its exports (on account of the United States blockade) and on the country’s economy as a whole, strongly suggests that the Maduro administration now needs to look inward for solutions to the wave of internal challenges that are no less challenging, and which threaten to wreak further havoc on the country’s already beleaguered economy.
A report emanating from Caracas earlier this week, based on information provided by Venezuela’s “Investigative Unit,” points to what it describes as “increasing criminal activity” hovering over the oil industry and hindering the sector’s recovery. If there is a general acceptance of the fact that Washington’s easing of the squeeze, not least the Biden administration’s green-lighting of a deal between Venezuela’s Petrobras and the American oil giant CHEVRON, under which the US company provides various forms of technical support for the state-run oil company, recovery, these days, is being hindered mostly by what has been described as “criminal activity around the industry” and the market’s potential recovery.