[0xB31B1B]

not quite

The oil production there is completely decimated. They have huge reserves but production is low and falling because the regime doesn't do any maintenance or support of anything in the oil production and supply chain. It is very much the meme of "living in the ruins of a once great society".

[goatlover]

Sanctions had nothing to do with this?

[brohee]

Replacing all competent but ideologically unreliable people by reliable but incompetent people got more to it. See "Politicization" in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDVSA?wprov=sfla1

[selectodude]

Not really. VZ oil production peaked in 2012, long before the sanctions.

[isr]

Completely dishonest answer. Sanctions decimated Venezuela's ability to maintain its oil infrastructure. Everything, from machined parts, to the various chemicals needed, everything, was affected.

It just took a few years for the sanctions to bite, as the Venezuelans conserved & used stockpiles.

Again, a completely dishonest take. Speaks volumes, when most defenders of todays criminality keep spouting arguments to this effect.

[selectodude]

Venezuelan oil production was cratering years before the first oil sanctions because they replaced everybody who knew how to drill oil with loyalists. I didn’t realize this was debatable.