Venezuela's Gasoline Crisis

Venezuela Gasoline Shortages

In the last recent weeks, aside from the diverse problems facing the venezuelan oil industry, another critical issue with potential high social and political consequences for the Maduro government is the deep shortages of gasoline nationwide which is also impacting importantly the capital Caracas, a rare situation given the political weight of the city for the government and this crisis gets reinforced by the ramping of US and the EU sanctions against partners of PdVSA which have been exporting gasoline to the country coupled with the close to collapse of the refining sector unable to produce gasoline enough for domestic consumption altogether leading to a critical situation of gasoline supplies in Venezuela.

In this regard, and to add some context to the situation, the current acute gasoline shortage in Venezuela could well be the worst at least since the oil strike in 2002-2003 by PDVSA workers to push Chavez out of office, especially due to the tremendously overall critical situation in the oil industry from production, refining and shipping oil and gasoline caused by years of corruption and mismanagement of the industry under the Bolivarian Revolution and worsened under the Maduro administration. 

Therefore, the root cause of this gasoline crisis is the destruction of the refining circuit of pdvsa which from being one of the largest in the world (processing around 1.5 mmbd) now it is down more than half of its past refining runs which was way before the recent targeted sanctions from Washington against pdvsa oil and gasoline exports and imports adding another critical element to the already ongoing collapse of the overall Venezuelan oil sector.

And knowing about the consequences of this gasoline crisis, the Maduro government with PDVSA authorities have been making attempts to restart 2 key refining units, El Palito with around 150 kbd of processing capacity and Amuay-Cardon, even allegedly bringing technical help and assistance from Iran, but without significant results and the crisis still unfolding and without the technical knowledge and capabilities to fully restart both refining hubs. In this sense, according to Jose Toro Hardy, former manager of PDVSA and an often quoted oil expert, he stated: “ El Palito refinery cant be repaired just adding patches and out of thin air, its very complex and its unit of catalytic cracking key to producing gasolines has not yet restarted” 

Also,as another desperate move to try to import gasoline under the current situation, allegedly a tycoon often linked with the Maduro government, Wilmer Ruperti owner of a large shipping conglomerate, chartered 2 ships loaded with around 500.000 barrels of gasoline in order to taper down the current nationwide gasoline shortage already causing food prices spikes and shortages.

Therefore if this situation of shortages of gasoline in Caracas and in different cases in the rest of the country no gasoline at all continues the economy already in pain with an ongoing crash of the national currency, bolivar, against the dollar and the complete control of gas stations by the military forces and coupled with a collapse of the oil production in Venezuela this will certainly have significant consequences for the country and potentialsocial unrests, where there have been already diverse lootings and protests demanding gasoline and food all across Venezuela. On this Bloomberg reported: “Riots Erupt in Venezuela’s countryside over food and fuel scarcity. Dozens of Venezuelans clashed with police forces in the countryside of southern Bolivar state on Thursday, which was the latest of at least 500 protests registered in April as food and fuel become scarce in Venezuela”