Venezuela's Refineries: A $20 Billion Problem with No Clear Solution

The Paraguana Refining Center in Western Venezuela, once a symbol of the country's oil wealth and ambition to turn crude reserves into fuels and export revenue, is now running at a fraction of its capacity.

The 955,000-barrel-per-day complex has seen decades of decline, unrelated to recent earthquakes that struck the area. Workers describe the facilities as 'ugly and rusty,' with open-air waste pits nearly full, residue seeping across pipelines and valve stations, and years of underinvestment, equipment failures, and shortages.

A Venezuelan energy analyst, Oswaldo Felizzola, estimates that fully restoring refining capacity would require at least $20 billion. The U.S. has excluded companies from nations it considers adversaries, including Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba, from investing in Venezuela's oil industry.