(NAFB) With the recent incursion by the U.S. military into Venezuela, Canada’s oil industry has been analyzing just what impacts those events could have. Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves. It has more than Saudi Arabia, and more than Canada, which has the world’s third-largest reserves. Also, geologists working in the oil patch say that Canada’s heavy-grade oil is virtually identical to Venezuela’s heavy crude.
The difference, according to industry analysts, is that expatriate Venezuelans include those who have left because of how badly Venezuela has squandered its huge oil resources over the past two decades. Venezuelan workers, engineers, and geologists were forced to leave the country when former president Hugo Chavez nationalized the country’s oil industry back in 2003 and fired half of its oil-patch workers and much of its management and executives in the process. The industry situation has only stagnated under the Maduro regime.
Jorge Hobles left Venezuela shortly after his country’s industry was nationalized. Today, he works with the Canadian oil industry, operating his own engineering firm in Edmonton, Alberta. Hobles says that after nearly 25 years of neglect, Venezuela’s production infrastructure is a shambles.
Hobles says that much is being made of Venezuela’s oil reserves, but its oil output has shrunk by more than 70 percent. Hobles believes the Canadian oil industry will see almost no serious competition from Venezuela in the short-term.
It’s widely believed that, along with massive financial investments, it could take at least ten years to revive Venezuela’s oil industry. Patrick de Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, says that a resurgent Venezuelan oil industry is certainly a competitor to the Canadian industry. But he says Canada has other plans – and Venezuelan competition is a long way down the road.
Again, that’s Patrick De Haan of GasBuddy.
