Frankly, I'm surprised people think Venezuela has lots of oil to exploit. Ever since Chavez took control of PDVSA in 2002, it's continuously increased its reported reserves each year by ridiculous amounts despite not finding any significant new fields. I wouldn't trust PDVSA's declared reserves any more than I would any other statistical info from their government.
Good point....
At the same time we have tons of new Tech running out of Houston and elsewhere to turn what might have been minor oil fields, and extract much more using the new tools available....
We have seen similar Tech used to take marginal oil fields and turn around massive profits over the past decade or two in Texas and elsewhere.....
If that tech were suitable for Venezuelan oil fields, you'd think by now a Russian or Chinese oil company would've done so. That they haven't suggests one of two things. It ain't there, or even the Russians and Chinese weren't willing to seal with corruption as pervasive as Venezuela's kleptocracy.
This is entirely plausible...
Although obviously my Screen Name indicates that I support a transition from Fossil Fuel based Energy, we can't underestimate the combination of hardware and software when it comes to Energy Extraction Modeling....
For Example, when I worked as a Contractor for a Fortune 50 Tech Company some 7 Years Back (Post NDA and Confidential Disclosure Agreements since am speaking in generalities), that was in no way shape or form involved in the Energy Sector, one of the projects that a team of Engineers was working on was modeling vibrations from a nearby highway to get ahead of the game when it came to selling a certain type of product of interest to Big Petro.
I first learned about "slant level drilling techniques" at the time of Iraq War v 1.0 (1990-1991), where one of the major disagreements between the Iraqi and Kuwaiti Governments right after the end of the Iran-Iraq War, where the Kuwaiti Government had employed Texas Oil Companies that specialized in the subject to use this technique to suck oil from under the territorial boundaries of Iraq in the Rumaila "Super Giant Oil Fields"....
Iraq didn't spend too much time on that during the Iran-Iraq War, since after all the Kuwaitis and Saudis were major supporters of the Baathist Regime....
After the Iran-Iraq War, Kuwaiti demanded immediate repayment on War Debts from the Iraqi Government, Iraq responded regarding Oil Field thefts, US GVT Ambassador April Gillespie under Bush Sr. tells the Iraqis "Go Ahead", Iraqi troops invade Kuwait, and well the rest is history....
Still, having lived in Houston for Four Years, not so long back, I am pretty much convinced that the US Petro Sector is "Top Notch" when it comes to the combination of data modelling, the use of tooling and software to successfully extract Petro even from Oil Fields that might be considered "Low Yield" fields, to turn them from what might be considered a marginal profit bank to a more significant revenue profit stream.
The Orinoco Belt is considered to be one of the largest in the World, and certainly US Technology will be the best in the world in recovering these reserves and flipping them from a marginal investment to a huge profit bank....
If the US can send a Man/Woman to the Moon, surely we can harvest the huge harvest of dinosaur bones turned into something that is still a major energy source, and limp through the future before our ability to even harvest "minor reserves" is exhausted....
How much of the War Drums beating are an "Imperialist Oil Grab", how much are "Overthrow an 'Unpopular Socialist Government", how much is just that the US GVT has been ignoring the ongoing Civil Crisis in Venezuela that has been ongoing for a Decade (DEM and PUB Administrations alike), where many of my Latino Friends and Co-Workers in Houston were talking about as a major crisis within America Latina....
