Venezuela: The decline of an oil giant in crisis

After Hugo Chavez came to power in 1999, he ordered all private oil companies to merge with PDVSA and made the state institution the majority shareholder. From then on, the oil industry was hit by corruption, poor decision-making, problems with maintenance and aging equipment, and later financial sanctions. (An oil refinery in Venezuela - Filepic)

CARACAS: Leaks, rusted pipes, pieces of broken equipment scattered about and staircases leading nowhere: Lake Maracaibo’s oil field is a metaphor for Venezuela’s once-flourishing petroleum industry that is now on its knees.

More than a century ago, the Maracaibo basin in northwestern Zulia state was the birthplace of a business that transformed the country into one of the world’s 10 largest oil producers and a Latin American economic heavyweight.