Local education on the peculiarities of the oil & gas industry are likely to come thick and fast even as Guyana proceeds to reap the anticipated rich returns from it world-class oil find. These days, neighbouring Venezuela, reportedly the country possessing the largest known oil reserves anywhere in the world, continues to find out that the complications associated with being an oil-rich country can have their own geo-political idiosyncrasies.
That much is reflected in the ongoing travails of its oil industry arising out of the determination of the Trump administration in Washington to pry President Nicholas Maduro from office. Over time, some mind-boggling developments have arisen from Washington’s attempts to bring Caracas’ state-run oil operations to a shuddering halt, arguably none more so than what we learnt recently, was the return to Venezuela of a consignment of cargo amounting to 950,000 barrels of crude oil originally bound for the USA but which had been halted on its journey on account of the US embargo. The consignment, reportedly valued at a whopping US$50 million had reportedly been ‘floating around’ at sea for an entire year!
