One of the classic potshots aimed at Venezuela from time to time is the imminent decline, or implosion or just plain death of its oil industry. This has been going on for the last five years at least, but those with their rabid hatred for all things Chávez have never let facts get in the way of their made up bullshit and continue banging the drum.
The latest salvo against Venezuela's oil industry is one of their old chestnuts, that of the rig count. In a nutshell, by counting the number of rigs in operation you can get a decent idea as to how the sector is operating...the more rigs, the more dynamic and healthy things are. Makes sense, right? So here's the chart for the Venezuelan rig count, as supplied by industry leaders Schlumberger (resource page here). It discounts the 50 nationally owned rigs and just concentrates on foreign owned rigs (and as such matches the latest Vzla government figure of 140 rigs to a tee).
The latest salvo against Venezuela's oil industry is one of their old chestnuts, that of the rig count. In a nutshell, by counting the number of rigs in operation you can get a decent idea as to how the sector is operating...the more rigs, the more dynamic and healthy things are. Makes sense, right? So here's the chart for the Venezuelan rig count, as supplied by industry leaders Schlumberger (resource page here). It discounts the 50 nationally owned rigs and just concentrates on foreign owned rigs (and as such matches the latest Vzla government figure of 140 rigs to a tee).
As we can see, in the last few months we've seen a drop-off in Venezuelan rig activity and there's not much doubt about that. So as day follows night, this is being jumped upon by the myopic oppos as clear evidence of the imminent etc etc blah blah we're all gonna die. (helped along by slanted reports from people who should know better). What we need here is a bit of context, so this chart below isn't the kind of thing the Chávezhaters will be showing off to their sycophants any time in the near future.
Yup you got it; apart from that oil strike period in late 2002/early 2003, the world rig count pretty much matches the evolution of rig counts in Venezuela. So rather than predict the end of PDVSA these Chávezhaters should be wailing about the death of the whole freakin' world oil industry, shouldn't they? Or maybe they should just cut to that Mayan 2012 prediction about the end of times and blame Chávez for that too. Or maybe, just maybe they should learn a little bit more about their subject and then they might just...
