Venezuela Ready to Supply the Global Oil, Gas Market: Maduro

At an event during the visit of Secretary General of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries [OPEC], Haitham al-Ghais, to Caracas, Maduro stated that "Venezuela is ready and willing to fulfill its role and supply, in a stable and secure manner, the oil and gas market that the world economy needs."

The current output for Venezuela is approximately 700,000 barrels per day in comparison to 2.3 million barrels back in 2002. However, the president insisted that the country’s oil industry has “recovered” despite historic low-level productions that have resulted from a lack of maintenance and investment.

In May 2022, Maduro hailed, in a broadcasted speech to Venezolana de Televisión, the Venezuelan Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami for his and the workers’ efforts for improvements in the given sector. Maduro said that "He [El Aissami and workers] have achieved the oil industry's recovery with their own effort, with their own work, with their own technology."

During the same speech, Maduro detailed the Venezuelan oil and gas crisis and linked it to the role of the US and its sanctions against his liberated nation.

He said that "The entire Venezuelan oil industry, the refineries, the upgraders, the petrochemicals are technology dependent on the United States, there are machines that even turn off, as happens with Western technology, that sell a machine [to work] until 2018 and in 2018 it turned off and the only way to turn it on is to change a card and pay a little real [money] so that they put in [insert] the new card for four years, [...] And our technicians, workers, and scientists came and activated everything."

Recently, in the past few months, and due to anti-Russia sanctions, Moscow sharply reduced deliveries of oil and gas to Europe. Russia has historically been Europe’s largest oil and gas supplier. The decrease in deliveries raised fears of shortage and increased prices given that winter is almost there.

OPEC Secretary-General Haitham Al-Ghais, while in Caracas, has warned that the organization is faced with a “more serious, more critical” challenge than any it has faced since its foundation 62 years earlier.

On this note, Maduro argued during a meeting with Al-Ghais that OPEC+ is urged to strive toward establishing a “fair” oil price at $100 per barrel.

"In the face of forecasts about the situation in Europe and the West, with the arrival of fall and winter, we could send a powerful message of stability and balance. And direct all appropriate actions to ensure that the price of oil is kept in a fair, necessary and balanced way at around $100 per barrel," Maduro said.

The existing balance of supply, production, global supply, and demand for oil, according to Venezuela's leader, indicates that oil should cost $100 per barrel.

Maduro said that despite "the worst manifestations of Western irrationality," the alliance's measures allowed prices to avoid the hike of prices to $150 per barrel or more.