Venezuela's Oil Export Revival Stymied by Aging Ports

Venezuela's oil export revival has hit a wall due to aging ports that cannot handle the growing flow of crude. Tankers are waiting as long as 30 days to load, creating a de facto ceiling on exports even as production and international demand rise.

The bottleneck highlights a deeper problem facing Venezuela's oil recovery: years of sanctions, underinvestment, and deteriorating infrastructure have left the country with limited capacity to move crude from production sites into international markets. Equipment failures, power outages, crude-quality problems, and insufficient storage are now combining to slow shipments.

PDVSA and its partners have struggled to push exports above roughly 1.25 million barrels per day despite rising production and efforts to drain crude stocks. This is significantly below the more than 2.5 million barrels per day the country's terminals were capable of handling when Venezuelan oil production was above 3 million bpd more than two decades ago.