The government decided to reopen the sector to private investment in the 1990s. PDVSA, though then a respected national oil company, lacked the financial and technical capabilities to develop Venezuela’s deposits of extra-heavy oil in the Orinoco Belt. × Facts & figures Venezuela crude oil production and prices Once President Hugo Chavez’s reforms began to be felt, Venezuela’s oil production started to stall, and then fall, regardless of whether prices were rising or falling. The situation worsened in the 1980s, when OPEC imposed production cuts on its members following the collapse of oil prices. However, the trend toward nationalizing oil sectors, which began in the 1960s, culminated in Venezuela in 1976 with the creation of Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. Venezuela’s oil output reached a peak in 1970 at 3.7 mb/d, which then represented around 8 percent of global supplies. A combination of factors has contributed to Venezuela’s poor performance in oil production, but government policies have played the most important role. Today’s production is the result of investment decisions made many years ago. With conventional oil, it takes years, sometimes decades, to convert a discovery into a producing field. To understand what has led to such a drastic turn in fortune, one must look back several decades. © macpixxel for GIS Production performance ![]() × Facts & figures Top 10 countries by proven oil reserves Venezuela boasts even larger proven oil reserves than Saudi Arabia. Production fell to just 1.2 mb/d in September 2018, allowing other producers, including its OPEC partners, to snap up its market share. The situation has deteriorated further since then. By 2017, its production had shrunk to 2.1 mb/d and its market share had more than halved. In 1998, Venezuela produced more than 3.4 million barrels a day (mb/d), nearly 5 percent of the global total, and ranked as the seventh-largest producer in the world. This massive potential has failed to translate into production, which has fallen in recent years. Thanks to the huge deposits of heavy oil in the Orinoco Belt, Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves in the world (more than 300 billion barrels or nearly 18 percent of the global total). is the primary destination for Venezuelan crude oil exports (41%), as its refineries are equipped to process the country’s heavy oil
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