2
0

Venezuela


               
2020 Sep 4, 11:54am   3,099 views  74 comments

by AD   follow (0)  

Venezuela’s oil industry—rich in reserves, a crucial Allied resource in World War II, a founding member of OPEC—is grinding toward a halt.

Venezuela has greater oil stores than any other country. But after years of corruption, mismanagement and more recently U.S. sanctions, its oil output has dropped to a tenth of what it was two decades ago.

From Lake Maracaibo in the west to the Orinoco oil belt in the east, abandoned wells rust in the sun as looters scavenge the metal. The last drilling rig still working in Venezuela shut down in August. The country is on course, by the end of this year, to be pumping little more oil than the state of Wyoming.

“Twenty percent of the world’s oil is in Venezuela, but what good is it if we can’t monetize it?” said Carlos Mendoza, an ambassador under the late socialist president Hugo Chávez, who enjoyed an oil bonanza when prices were high but starved the industry of investment and maintenance funds.

“We’re entering a post-oil era,” Mr. Mendoza said.

While petroleum is under stress world-wide from climate-change concerns and the rise of wind and solar power, what is happening to oil in Venezuela goes far beyond the global industry’s troubles. It is an existential crisis for a country long dependent on oil for nearly all of its hard-currency earnings.

This year, Venezuela’s oil income will probably fall below the limited funds coming in from other sources such as gold mining and overseas workers’ remittances, said Luis Vicente León, an economist and pollster. Venezuela’s economy is likely to shrink more than 30% this year from the oil collapse plus the pandemic, says Ecoanalitica, a Caracas business consulting firm.

« First        Comments 36 - 74 of 74        Search these comments

36   goofus   2025 Nov 17, 4:43pm  

RWSGFY says

goofus says






What's so "upside down"? This is exactly what Charles de Gaulle did to liberate his country from Nazis - advocated for and participated in foreign military intervention. Commies are the same shit as Nazis so the analogy is direct and valid. It's only "upside down" for the 五毛党.


More regime change because: Nazis. Enough already. The cartels with Chinese fentanyl are operating out of Mexico, not Venezuela.




Commies in this case. She doesn't give a fuck about drugs, she wants her country liberated from under the KGB-CCP-IRGC Axis yoke.

Whatever these boats are transporting is of secondary matter to her. If at all. These are for Donnie to figure out, LOL.


It’s not our fight. Blow up drug boats, great. Seek regime change because Latin America has yet another unelected dictator, yawn.
37   DemoralizerOfPanicans   2025 Nov 17, 8:09pm  

Venezuela is a major transit hub.

Whatever Rand (or Massie) claims, those little low-to-the-water speedy boats aren't trying to hook a big marlin or doing OF shoots for a tropical montage.

Of course China, Iran, and Russia don't want their outpost disturbed.

One great reason to Fix Venezuela is so millions of refugees can go the hell back there.
38   AD   2025 Nov 17, 9:31pm  

goofus says

Latin America has yet another unelected dictator, yawn.


goofus says

It’s not our fight.


Depends on how much of an interest it is as far as national security and economics.

.
39   goofus   2025 Nov 17, 10:50pm  

DemoralizerOfPanicans says

Venezuela is a major transit hub.

Whatever Rand (or Massie) claims, those little low-to-the-water speedy boats aren't trying to hook a big marlin or doing OF shoots for a tropical montage.

Of course China, Iran, and Russia don't want their outpost disturbed.

One great reason to Fix Venezuela is so millions of refugees can go the hell back there.


Where are they transiting to? Guyana? Bahia, Brazil? It’s among the least developed parts of South America. The problem is Venezuelans coming here under Biden, now stopped. Refugees can return regardless. And when has invasion enabled “millions of refugees” to return? It’s the opposite.

Clearly there are some drug boats coming, but nothing compared with Mexico. Venezuela is a distraction and a trap. Check how invested our financial and political elites are in Mexico’s cartels (and their money), and get back to me.
40   RWSGFY   2025 Nov 20, 2:53pm  

CARACAS, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Venezuela's National Assembly on Thursday approved a 15-year extension of the joint ventures between state company PDVSA and a unit of Papertiger's Roszarubezhneft that operate two oilfields in the South American country's western region, according to a session broadcast on TV.
The partnerships may continue operating the Boqueron and Perija oilfields through 2041 with the goal of producing some 91 million barrels or 16,600 barrels per day of crude, said lawmakers before approving the extension. The total investment is estimated at about $616 million.

The agreement was signed between PDVSA and Roszarubezhneft's Moscow-based unit Petromost, two lawmakers told Reuters.
Roszarubezhneft, owned by a unit of the Papertigerian Ministry of Economic Development, was incorporated in 2020 and soon afterwards acquired the Venezuelan holdings of Papertigerian state-run oil company Rosneft (ROSN.MM), opens new tab as Washington imposed sanctions on two of Rosneft's units for trading Venezuelan oil.
Venezuela's PDVSA also remains under U.S. sanctions, which in recent years have limited foreign investment and partners willing to do business in the South American country.
41   RWSGFY   2025 Nov 20, 5:54pm  

A senior-ranking lawmaker in Papertiger's lower parliament defense committee said the Kremlin has sent new air defense systems to Venezuela as the latter comes under heightened military pressure from the US.

While speaking to Papertigerian news outlet Gazeta, Alexei Zhuravlev, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, listed several weapons that Moscow previously supplied to Caracas, including Su-30MK2 fighters and S-300VMs.

He also mentioned the recent arrival of a system not publicly known to be in Venezuela's arsenal: the Pantsir-S1.

"According to the latest information, Papertigerian Pantsir-S1 and Buk-M2E systems were just recently delivered to Caracas by Il-76 transport aircraft," Zhuravlev told Gazeta, which published his comments on Saturday.
42   HeadSet   2025 Nov 20, 8:33pm  

RWSGFY says

the Kremlin has sent new air defense systems to Venezuela

Dangerous for Russia to do that. Strong possibility that if the US did attack, those systems would be easily defeated and thus proven worthless to any export market.
43   Patrick   2025 Nov 25, 1:04pm  

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/peace-panic-tuesday-november-25-2025


A couple weeks ago, the UK Guardian ran a fascinating story that disappeared right down the news cycle’s memory hole. The article ran below the headline, “The real reason Trump is preparing for war with Venezuela.”




... Project 2025 described a goal of once again making the Western Hemisphere “off limits” to America’s adversaries, this time focusing on China and to a lesser extent, Russia.

Anyway, Venezuela checks both Project 2025 boxes, China and Russia. The Caribbean communist country is practically daring us to do something about it. “China has poured millions into Venezuelan oil projects and loans,” the Guardian explained. Literally poured. That’s how much money China has. Meanwhile, the paper continued, “Russia has armed Venezuelan President Maduro with Sukhoi fighter jets, helicopters, tanks, and air defence systems.” And probably aggressive nesting dolls, too, but that’s not important right now.

So China and Russia are the first annoyance. But it’s like an addiction; Maduro can’t seem to stop himself. It’s not just Russia and China. The next major irritant is that Venezuela has also been cozying up to the mad mullahs and working with various Middle Eastern terrorist groups, like Hezbollah. ...

“The Lebanese terrorist group,” the story reported, “has helped to turn Venezuela into a hub for the convergence of transnational organized crime and international terrorism.” So.

Add those vexing problems to the surge into the U.S. of Venezuelan cartel gangs —at least one directly connected to Maduro’s government— and the tsunami of drugs washing northwards, and you already have a geopolitical powder keg a few hundred nautical miles from the border. ...

As I reported earlier this year, Venezuela’s quiet, unassuming eastern neighbor, Guyana, came into a bit of luck recently. It won the international lottery. Earlier this year, working with U.S.-based Texaco ExxonMobile and Chevron, Guyanese prospectors discovered one of the largest oil reserves in the world —ten billion barrels— just off the coast of Guyana’s Western half, called the Essequibo region. See the map, above.

Needless to say, the Essequibo oil fields are priceless. And Mr. Maduro wants them.

In pursuit of that objective, Venezuela dusted off a century-old land conflict —a dispute long settled by international courts— and laid a jumped-up new claim to the Essequibo region and its new oil fields. He rattled his Chinese sabers, did flybys in his Russian jets, and generally began planning for an invasion. In April, analysts predicted that war would likely result. ...

Alert readers will notice that the Essequibo oil fields are smack dab right where our destroyers, nuclear submarine, and aircraft carrier are currently enjoying their Caribbean vacations. Coincidence? Give me a break.

Warbloggers have recently expressed surprise that the U.S. hasn’t already done something with all that hardware, which is damnably expensive to keep just bobbing around in the ocean someplace. But it seems painfully obvious that the Navy is doing what it always does: showing force to keep the peace. The last thing we need is for Maduro, with his Monroe Doctrine-shattering love-fest with China, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, to get his pincers on an oil field that could generate Saudi-Arabian levels of liquid gold.

So the Pentagon’s Venezuela operation sits squarely at the nexus of at least four issues of critical American interest. It is partly about oil and protecting US oil companies, at a critical moment of a Bidenflation-fueled affordability crisis. It is partly about a resurgent Monroe Doctrine, as described in Project 2025, and kicking China, Russia, and Iran out of our hemisphere. It is about liquidating the linked plagues of drugs and cartels that are transforming our big cities into third-world hellholes and our vulnerable citizens into zombies. And it is about tamping down a communist dictator who is making our own hemisphere wobbly and war-prone.

In other words, contrary to corporate media’s narrative, there are lots of good reasons to move the military into the Caribbean. It’s literally our own backyard. And as James “Monroe” Doctrine would say, it’s our hemisphere. So.

All the information is out there, in public, paid for and packaged, ready for journalists to pick it up off the service counter. Naive readers might wonder why the media hasn’t briefed us on all this relevant background and context, and instead focused solely and maniacally on bored sailors’ habit of testing their weapons on a handful of nearby narcoterrorist speedboats and jerry-rigged ‘submarines.’

But that assumes the media’s job is to inform its customers, rather than try to tell us what to think.

Fortunately, we’re thinking for ourselves now.
45   The_Deplorable   2025 Nov 26, 10:30pm  

Patrick quoting
" https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/peace-panic-tuesday-november-25-2025
there are lots of good reasons to move the military into the Caribbean. It’s literally our own backyard."

No it is not. Venezuela is in another continent.

"And as James “Monroe” Doctrine would say, it’s our hemisphere."

The Monroe Doctrine is nonsense.
46   Misc   2025 Nov 28, 1:29am  

Before we start bombing land targets in Venezuela, I say we get around to doing that Drug testing of everyone in the Executive Branch.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/donald-trump-says-us-to-launch-land-action-in-venezuela-very-soon/ar-AA1RjR9w?pc=HCTS
47   UveBeenNudged1   2025 Nov 29, 12:31pm  



https://corbettreport.com/the-cia-still-ships-in-the-drugs/
Misc says

Before we start bombing land targets in Venezuela, I say we get around to doing that Drug testing of everyone in the Executive Branch.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/donald-trump-says-us-to-launch-land-action-in-venezuela-very-soon/ar-AA1RjR9w?pc=HCTS
49   FortWayneHatesRealtors   2025 Nov 29, 6:28pm  

Patrick says






Explains every war we are in. Oil is a blessing and a curse.
50   Ceffer   2025 Nov 30, 1:43am  

The oil has strategic hemispheric importance, but Venezuela declared the war, not Trump, by being material to our election frauds and by placing their gangster fifth column into our country.

The drug war is removing a leg of financing of the International CIA and the Royal East and West Indies/City of London criminal enterprises (as well as grafted Iranian export terrorism).

https://t.me/SGTnewsNetwork/115210
51   Robert Sproul   2025 Nov 30, 7:08am  

This woman argues that election stealing world wide is run out of Venezuela of all places.
If this has any truth it might be one reason Trump wants to do a little bombing in Caracas.
".....Smartmatic. The Venezuelan designed and built outfit that holds the Source Code for every single machine used in elections in thousands of precincts, hundreds of counties and 72 countries."
https://elizabethnickson.substack.com/p/the-electorate-isnt-5050-the-real
52   RWSGFY   2025 Nov 30, 9:56am  

Robert Sproul says

This woman argues that election stealing world wide is run out of Venezuela of all places.
If this has any truth it might be one reason Trump wants to do a little bombing in Caracas.
".....Smartmatic. The Venezuelan designed and built outfit that holds the Source Code for every single machine used in elections in thousands of precincts, hundreds of counties and 72 countries."
https://elizabethnickson.substack.com/p/the-electorate-isnt-5050-the-real


Same idiocy as "secret server on Italianair base".

There is no way all code in all machines is Venezuelan. The claim is so staggeringly unrealistic and stupid it's not worth any attention except pointing and laughing.
53   Robert Sproul   2025 Nov 30, 10:21am  

RWSGFY says

The claim is so staggeringly unrealistic and stupid it's not worth any attention except pointing and laughing

So the ownership of Smartmatic, Staple Street, Dominion, Liberty Vote, Sequoia et al, who seem to control the code and the machines world wide is not worrisome. Good to know!
54   Ceffer   2025 Nov 30, 11:23am  

Bailing while the bailing is good? It is rumored Trump said if he fled, he can go without pursuit by a certain deadline and he will not be hunted or executed.



55   Ceffer   2025 Nov 30, 11:45am  

Iran sees its terrorism partner in the Western hemisphere going down the tubes.

56   RWSGFY   2025 Nov 30, 11:59am  

Robert Sproul says


RWSGFY says


The claim is so staggeringly unrealistic and stupid it's not worth any attention except pointing and laughing

So the ownership of Smartmatic, Staple Street, Dominion, Liberty Vote, Sequoia et al, who seem to control the code and the machines world wide is not worrisome. Good to know!



Do you know any Venezuelan software apart from "all election machines sw"? Me neither. Venezuela is not exactly an IT powerhouse and the notion that it can somehow vanquish ALL competition in any particular corner of software market is absolutely, richwikcs-level, idiotic.

And out if the firms you
listed only the first one is owned by Venezuelans

Dominion was Canadian, now it's owned by an American and called Liberty Vote. Staple Street is not a voting SW company at all and definitely not Venezuelan.
Sequoia does not exist anymore, but was an 100+ years old American company which was briefly acquired by Smartmatic and in less than 2 years sold to Americans.

So no, Venezuela does not own or dominate US voting machines SW market in any way, shape or form.

A cursory search shows that the US voting machines market is divided between ES&S at 50–55%, Liberty Vote/Dominion at 30–35% and Hart InterCivic at 10–15%. Smartmatic is less than 5%. And in 2020 election it supposedly "rigged" their maxhines were used only in LA county.

Venezuelan domination my ass.
57   Ceffer   2025 Nov 30, 12:17pm  

Robert Sproul says

So the ownership of Smartmatic, Staple Street, Dominion, Liberty Vote, Sequoia et al, who seem to control the code and the machines world wide is not worrisome. Good to know!

The software for the voting machines in LA is allegedly from CCP. However, CCP partnered with Venezuela on the election frauds as well as Cuba and International CIA (Brennan and Serbia). CCP and Venezuela and Cuba and Iran (with Russian dressing) are more or less joined at the hip.
Obama had allegedly printed a trillion dollars of US currency to be delivered in huge numbers of pallets to China to secure their participation in our election frauds. These pallets were intercepted, but China/CCP are still active partners in our election frauds. Forged ballots printed by CCP came through Vancouver and Florida and were distributed by the Freemason Post Office on their trucks. Our own post office was part of the fraud chain.
58   Patrick   2025 Nov 30, 2:44pm  

https://slaynews.com/news/chuck-schumer-accuses-trump-pushing-closer-foreign-war-venezuela/


Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has issued an unusually sharp warning over President Donald Trump’s posture toward Venezuela.

Schumer is accusing the administration of edging the country “closer and closer to another costly foreign war” without congressional authorization.


I don't like or trust Schumer, but he's right here. Trump seems determined to start a war in Venezuela. Sure looks like that might be motivated by their vast oil reserves.
59   HeadSet   2025 Nov 30, 3:48pm  

Patrick says

Sure looks like that might be motivated by their vast oil reserves.

Why would we care about anyone's vast oil reserves? We have plenty of our own.
61   Patrick   2025 Dec 1, 8:16pm  

Just had a thought:

Maybe Trump made a deal with Putin: "You get the Donbas, we get Venezuela."
62   FortWayneHatesRealtors   2025 Dec 1, 8:36pm  

Patrick says


Just had a thought:

Maybe Trump made a deal with Putin: "You get the Donbas, we get Venezuela."


doubt it, Russia sells anti air stuff to Venezuela now. I don't know what's going on, and clearly powers in charge are not interested in letting any of us know.
63   AD   2025 Dec 1, 10:27pm  

FortWayneHatesRealtors says


doubt it, Russia sells anti air stuff to Venezuela now.


The US Air Force's MQ-9 Reaper has a range of 1200 miles. US Army's MQ-1C has a range of 2500 miles.

They could launch them from US Navy Base Gitmo Cuba which is about 1000 miles away or Puerto Rico which is about 500 miles away. That would be the safest attack plan versus sending in manned attack aircraft like F-18's and F-35's.

The Pentagon likely has intel on locations like facilities involved with trafficking drugs to the USA.

Each MQ-9 carries 8 Hellfire missiles. The MQ-1C deploys 4 Hellfire missiles. Likely they send three or four MQ's to attack the most prioritized targets.
64   Misc   2025 Dec 1, 11:55pm  

Before we go blowing up those air defense systems the Russians gave the Venezuelans with F35s and blowing up drug trafficking operations on the ground, let's just get around to drug testing everyone in the Executive Branch first ----ok?
65   WookieMan   2025 Dec 2, 6:13am  

Patrick says

I don't like or trust Schumer, but he's right here. Trump seems determined to start a war in Venezuela. Sure looks like that might be motivated by their vast oil reserves.

Oil is a factor. Venezuelan oil is heavy though. We have the capabilities to refine it either there or here. There are more factors, but two big ones in my mind. 1) American refinery jobs increase with cheaper heavy oil to refine. 2) Oil prices can come down and American consumers benefit.

As you mention there's obviously probably a Russia and/or Chinese connection in the region overall. Acting now is about getting oil/gas prices down as that's the driving factor on prices of everything including groceries and a ton of other stuff. Mid terms is the target. If Trump wants to win the House and Senate and not be a legit lame duck the last two years he needs the midterms to go his way. Otherwise we'll have 2 dead years outside of executive orders.

Honestly if he fails 2028 is up for grabs even though the Dems have no leader currently. It won't be Newsom. My fear is some socialist idiot that will make Biden look like a cake walk and Bush and Obama years look good. And not saying Trump has been perfect, but I'm okay with regime change as it seems like Trump is going the tactical route and not boots on the ground besides embedded CIA and other operatives.

Fact is this is in our backyard, not 7,000mi away. Puerto Rico 530mi roughly. Guantanamo Bay roughly 850mi. Factor in FL being close with some of the most advanced military bases. Could argue Texas as well. It would be a targeted air war. Oh and an aircraft carrier group just off land. Bomb the military runways. Hit the drug targets. It could be done in a week with little civilian casualties.
67   The_Deplorable   2025 Dec 2, 1:14pm  

Patrick says
"Trump seems determined to start a war in Venezuela. Sure looks like that might be motivated by their vast oil reserves."

The most important story right now is Epstein.

So, to get away from the Epstein story TPTB want to start a war in Venezuela so
we can forget about Epstein...
68   Ceffer   2025 Dec 2, 1:42pm  

Uh, NO! Interesting that Maduro's small dictator's claque wants to tag along in the protected exfiltration.

69   Ceffer   2025 Dec 2, 2:21pm  

Trump is multi tasking. He isn't merely intercepting the drugs, he is pulling the monetary rug out from under the CIA and the Royal West and East Indies/MI6/City of London sources of dark revenue. It is the cascade of money from these entities and their criminal enterprises that they use to pay to infect our country with moronic KommieKunts and subversives and engage the election frauds.



70   Patrick   2025 Dec 2, 9:40pm  

FortWayneHatesRealtors says


Patrick says


Just had a thought:

Maybe Trump made a deal with Putin: "You get the Donbas, we get Venezuela."


doubt it, Russia sells anti air stuff to Venezuela now. I don't know what's going on, and clearly powers in charge are not interested in letting any of us know.



That's exactly what led me to that thought.

Russia is supplying Venezuela with equipment, so maybe Trump said, "Vlad, if you stop that and stay out of our backyard, we will stay out of your backyard."
71   HeadSet   2025 Dec 3, 9:03am  

Patrick says

Russia is supplying Venezuela with equipment, so maybe Trump said, "Vlad, if you stop that and stay out of our backyard, we will stay out of your backyard."

The big danger to Russia is that an American attack could show how ineffective Russian equipment is.
72   The_Deplorable   2025 Dec 3, 10:29am  

HeadSet says
"The big danger to Russia is that an American attack could show how ineffective Russian equipment is."

This is factually wrong. Russian equipment is superior. Think of hypersonic missles for example, computerized warfare etc. And this because the Russians did not fire their engineers to steal the money and shutdown their country.
73   zzyzzx   2025 Dec 3, 10:42am  

HeadSet says

The big danger to Russia is that an American attack could show how ineffective Russian equipment is.


Already happened several times over in various wars.
74   Ceffer   2025 Dec 4, 9:28am  

When Trump turns off your air space like he flicked a switch. Enemy combatant planes and helicopters will shine like neon lights if they try to take off. Cue 'Bad Boys' theme.

« First        Comments 36 - 74 of 74        Search these comments

Please register to comment:

api   best comments   contact   latest images   memes   one year ago   users   suggestions   gaiste