Venezuela’s protracted and punishing search for a route to the recovery of its once vaunted oil industry from more than five years of crippling United States sanctions would appear to be scrutinizing the PetroCaribe ‘oil alliance’ struck in 2005 between eighteen Caribbean countries and the administration of the country’s now deceased President Hugo Chavez as at least a partial option for realizing that objective.
The PetroCaribe agreement which commenced back in 2005 had been reached at a juncture when the Venezuelan economy was riding high on the country’s oil wealth and when Chavez was on a mission of seeking to strengthen ties with the English-speaking Caribbean even as high global oil prices were wreaking havoc with the heavily oil-dependent countries of the region.
