A post-Maduro boom in chemicals could take Venezuela years

The removal of President Nicolás Maduro by the US military could be a turning point for Venezuela’s sagging oil and gas industry. But even if Venezuela begins to attract foreign investment in hydrocarbons, any rejuvenation of its petrochemical sector is likely to take the better part of a decade.According to the US Energy Information Administration, Venezuela has the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves, at about 300 billion barrels. Yet from 2013 to 2023, the country’s oil production fell 70%, to 742,000 barrels per day.Oil industry experts cite many reasons for the decline. US sanctions plus concerns about potential expropriation of assets have kept international investors at bay. Venezuela’s heavy crude oil is technically challenging to extract and refine, making the country dependent on foreign technology partners. And experts say mismanagement has degraded Venezuela’s energy infrastructure.Turning around the oil sector and opening it up to foreign investment is at the heart of the Donald J. Trump administration’s rationale for toppling Maduro. “As everyone knows, the oil business in Venezuela has been a bust, a total bust, for a long period of time,” Trump said on Jan. 3, after Maduro’s capture. “They were pumping almost nothing by comparison to what they could have been pumping and what could have taken place. We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”In an analysis published