A putrid smell hangs over the black shores of Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, where an oil spill is emblematic of the precipitous decline of the country’s once-enviable oil industry.
Here, as elsewhere in what was once Latin America’s richest country, economic woes are driving much of the debate ahead of a July 28 election in which President Nicolas Maduro will seek a third six-year term.
“We are suffering. Fishing from the shore is no longer possible because of the oil,” fisherman Yordi Vicuna, 34, told AFP, adding that catches had increased tenfold.
He said the nets constantly have to be washed or replaced after they are stained by oil leaking from broken pipes, which the government cannot afford to fix.
Much of Venezuela’s economic collapse — fueled in part by a sharp drop in international oil prices after 2014 — occurred under the watch of Maduro, who has been in power since 2013.
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Many Venezuelans — including Vicuna — blame US sanctions for the plight.
“The pipeline is damaged because of the (financial) blockade,” said the fisherman, echoing the government’s official line, as he and others shoveled oil-soaked sand from the lake shore.
“We are asking the relevant agencies, people from abroad, to support the government in any way… to build the pipelines,” Vicuna added.
Boom to bust
More than a century ago, the hydrocarbon-rich Maracaibo Basin was the birthplace of an enterprise that turned Venezuela into one of the world’s top 10 oil producers — fueling a decades-long period of incredible prosperity.
The country, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, produced 3.5 million barrels of oil per day by 2008, with the United States as its main customer.
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But in just 12 years that has fallen to less than half a million barrels after the nationalization of the industry and a crippling, months-long strike at state oil company PDVSA in protest against then-President Hugo Chavez.
Chavez has fired thousands of PDVSA executives and managers, who observers say have been replaced mostly by lay loyalists.
As oil production has declined, Venezuela has been plunged into an economic crisis marked by years of recession and hyperinflation that has driven some seven million people — nearly a quarter of the population — to flee the country in just under a decade.
Most analysts blame the industry’s precipitous decline on PDVSA’s corruption and mismanagement, exacerbated by the tightening of sanctions on Venezuela after Maduro’s 2018 re-election, which was not recognized by dozens of countries.
“The lake is lost”
A few oil pumps are still operating on the polluted shore of Lake Maracaibo, but dozens of machines remain idle.
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Puyuyo beach near the Bajo Grande refinery is black with oil. It was once a popular swimming spot, but most of the small hotels and bars here are now closed.
“People used to come here … Families came from all over to visit, eat fish and swim, but now there is 30 centimeters (11.8 inches) of oil” at the bottom of the lake, Guillermo Albeniz Cano said.
The 64-year-old has a beach cafe but no customers. Instead, he trades rice and flour for the occasional fish or crab meat.
When AFP visited Puyuyo, only one cafe table was occupied — by crabs playing dominoes who said they preferred to work.
“Since there’s a lot of oil in the lake, we couldn’t go out today,” said father-of-four Luis Angel Vega.
“Sometimes we don’t eat for a whole day, added the 26-year-old.
However, his colleague Alvaro Villamil, 61, tried his luck. On his boat “Carmen Rosa”, he showed off his catch of some blue crabs that he managed to get from the less polluted center of the lake.
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But it’s not enough to live on.
“It’s difficult… The lake is gone. There’s a lot of oil,” Villamil told AFP, his long-sleeved T-shirt stained with the stuff.
‘For sale’
Maracaibo was a thriving city in the 20th century, with its colonial buildings, Art Deco theater and tram line.
Today, “for sale” signs on properties far outnumber campaign posters, while tall grass and crumbling walls abound in the industrial zone.
About 200 companies, including the German firm Siemens, once had a presence in the region. Today it is about 30.
However, there are signs that Venezuela’s oil fortunes may be looking up again.
Despite renewing sanctions after Maduro reneged on election negotiations, Washington is allowing companies such as Chevron and Repsol to apply for individual licenses to continue operating in Venezuela.
And Oil Minister Pedro Tellechea said in May that he was optimistic Venezuela’s oil production would reach one million barrels per day this year.
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That will largely depend on what happens in next Sunday’s vote, with widespread fear that Maduro will steal the election and usher in a new era of international pariahdom.
Source: AFP