Venezuela’s Oil Industry Needs Biden To Lift Sanctions

In the space of less than a decade Venezuela’s once-mighty oil industry, the petrostate’s economic backbone, has nearly collapsed. Since Maduro’s predecessor Chavez took power in 1999 and launched his socialist Bolivarian revolution the founding OPEC member’s petroleum production has steadily declined. OPEC data shows that during 2015 Venezuela pumped an average almost 2.4 million barrels of crude oil per day which was significantly less than the 1998 annual production record of 3.1 million barrels. By 2020, Venezuela’s…