The Venezuelan government has destroyed the oil industry by decimating the free enterprise system, as investment, human capital, and new technologies entirely dry up.
Recently, it has become abundantly clear that the number of drills operating in Venezuela has dropped to levels of a country without oil reserves. Our oil industry was once the envy of the region; now it’s the tragedy of the region Chinese investment will not save us…thus far the Chinese have made only meager and insufficient investments that will not change the fundamental reality of our precipitous decline in production.
https://panampost.com/aurelio-concheso/2018/09/25/venezuela-oil-industry-in-crisis-as-rig-count-plummets/?cn-reloaded=1&cn-reloaded=1Only 25 rigs drilling.