Structural change in crude oil production in Latin America during the 21st century: a comparative political economy analysis

This article analyses structural change in crude oil production among seven Latin American producers over 2000 to 2024. It argues that three political-institutional variables explain national divergences with greater analytical power than geological or market factors: the governance design of each country's oil sector, the power asymmetry between states and hydrocarbon transnational companies (IOCs), and the differentiated impact of sanctions regimes. Using descriptive statistics drawn from Energy Institute (2024) data and documentary content analysis of academic publications, institutional reports and expert interviews, the study demonstrates that Venezuela ceded 34 percentage points of regional share, from 46.5% to 12.4%, while Brazil tripled its share to 45.4% and Guyana emerged as the world's fastest-growing producer since 2019. Two articulated causal mechanisms are identified: in booming countries, attraction of transnational private capital under varying degrees of contractual asymmetry drove production growth; in declining countries, destruction of technical and financial capacity through politicisation, predatory fiscal extraction, external sanctions or regulatory deterrence explains collapse. The article integrates resource curse theory, above-ground risks, state-IOC power asymmetry, a typology of oil market sanctions, and national energy cultures into a unified analytical framework. Four structural paradoxes are derived: the reserves paradox, the sovereignty paradox, the sanctions paradox and the asymmetry paradox. The findings offer a roadmap for resource-exporting states seeking to reduce vulnerability to contractual and sanctions-based asymmetries.