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Transnational Thursdays 22

This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum might be interested in. Feel free to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Does Venezuela have much oil production left? It seems like mismanagement has turned it into ‘some in the ground, would take years to get it flowing’.

They're still a relevant producer though definitely a fraction of their former self:

Current output stands at roughly between 750,000 and 800,000 barrels a day. It’s not the 3 million barrels a day that made Venezuela a global energy force in the 1990s, but neither is it the 374,000 it hit when the country was at rock bottom in June 2020.

At least from the above article, "several analysts" predict:

industry is on the brink of being able to pump 200,000 more barrels of crude a day — a roughly 25% jump in production.

That seems surprisingly quick to me as well, though I don't really know the details of their capacity. I guess if they used to pump way more then they may still have a fair amount of drilled but un-utilized wells or DUCs.