Venezuela is one of the world’s top oil exporters. It is also one of the top suppliers of oil to the United States of America . Founded in 1960, Venezuela is one of five founding members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Along side Venezuela are the petroleum powerhouses Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Since then 9 other countries have joined OPEC, including: Qatar, Indonesia, Libya, United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Nigeria, Ecuador, Angola and Gabon.
OPEC’s mission is to come to agreements on petroleum policies among the member countries. This helps to ensure stable oil prices and regulate supply to oil consuming countries. Estimates made by the OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin 2013 show that 81%, about 1,200 billion barrels, of the worlds oil reserves are located in OPEC countries. Venezuela plays a large role in the share of OPEC’s oil reserves. Up to 27% of OPECs crude oil reserves are owned by Venezuela with about 297.7 billion barrels .The U.S Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimate that in 2011 about 2.4 million barrels of oil were produced per day. Although Venezuela has an abundance of oil, the crude oil does not meet international standards. Much of the oil has to be sent to oil refineries to be processed to meet the international standards .In 1970 Venezuela created its own oil and natural gas company called Petreleos de Venezuela S.A (PdVSA). PdVSA is responsible for a large portion of the Venezuelan governments revenue. It is also Venezuela’s largest employer. PdVSA has very old equipment that needs to be up kept in order to meet oil production rates. To maintain the equipment it is estimated that PdVSA invests about 3 billion dollars into repairs and u…
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