Oil Production in Venezuela is Falling Fast

With a massive power outage plaguing Venezuela since Friday, the situation of millions of citizens is once again deteriorating. After enduring rapid inflation, food and medicine shortages and surging violence in parts of the country, negative sentiments against the country’s leadership under President Nicolás Maduro are running even higher than before.

Maduro is meanwhile holding on to power thanks to a military largely loyal to him. In the previous days, thousands of protesters filled the streets again, many of them supporters of presidential challenger Juan Guaidó.

Nobody can say for certain how much longer the current administration will be able to keep up the status quo. The country’s main source of income, oil production, has also been decreasing as part of the crisis in the country. While 74 oil rigs were operational in the country when Maduro took office in April 2013, that number was 27 in the past month, as counted by oil industry resource Baker Hughes. Instead of producing around 2.35 million barrels of crude a day, Venezuela was only managing to produce 1.22 million barrels as of January, according to OPEC.