A scam that is both vile and deeply stupid
Source: The Plot to Steal Venezuela’s Oil
fta:
Now, it’s highly unlikely that this deal will hold. By all accounts, just about every faction in Venezuelan politics except the current ruling clique hates the deal. Since it will take years, maybe even decades, to realize the putative benefits of oil-company investments in Venezuela, how likely is it that whoever is running that country in the future will want to honor Trump’s terms? What are the odds that Venezuela will eventually expropriate U.S. oil-company investments? Or do we imagine a future in which the U.S. military maintains a permanent occupation of Venezuela, using force to prop up a puppet government the nation’s citizens hate?
…
There are also issues with the quality of Venezuelan oil. Venezuela appears on paper to have huge oil reserves. But much of these reserves are what I called a “black, sticky fantasy,” created by Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez, when he reclassified oil in the Orinoco Basin that will be difficult if not impossible to recover as “proved” reserves.
