Sabrina Martin reports for PANAMA POST.

Both nations realized that Venezuela’s oil industry is almost in total neglect and to get it back on its feet would require millions in additional investments

Both countries realized that Venezuela’s oil industry is almost in total neglect and that to get it back on its feet would require millions in additional investments.

Rosneft (Russia) was set to run the Amuay refinery with a capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, and Petrochina would handle Cardón, whose capacity is 310,000 barrels per day.

“That agreement was unsuccessful because these refineries are in appalling conditions, and they realized that the investments they had to make are extremely high,”

– Iván Freite, director of Federación Única de Trabajadores Petroleros de Venezuela.

Given this situation, Venezuela, with some the largest oil reserves in the world, plans to close three of its largest refineries due to a shortage of oil and lack of personnel. A situation that leaves the major source of income of the South American country in disarray.

The biggest threat to the oil industry and PDVSA is the socialist regime that has practically destroyed all existing infrastructure.

According to Platt’s Oilgram, the only entity that provides information on futures and options in the world oil market, the Maduro regime plans to close the refineries located in Cardón, El Palito, and Puerto La Cruz. They claim to not have enough crude oil to process fuels.

In the 90s, Cardón was part of the largest oil complex in the world and the most technologically advanced refinery. Today is about to shut down under the management of 21st-century socialism.

Jose Toro Hardy, an economist and member of the PDVSA board until 1999, told the PanAm Post that the country’s impoverishment is due to the mismanagement of the Venezuelan state oil company and blamed the regimes of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro for the situation.

“The problems started in 2002 and 2003 when President Chávez fired 20,000 PDVSA workers. That personnel had an average of 15 years working for the industry, so they threw to the trash 300,000 years of experience and knowledge,” Toro said.