Venezuela, a world recognized country with one of the largest oil reserves and eighth country in the world ranking with the largest proven natural gas reserves of about 201.5 billion cubic feet, is currently suffering one of the worst crisis of domestic fuel and gas shortages . Despite having seven oil refineries that in previous years produced approximately three and a half million barrels of oil per day and which today are reduced to just three hundred and ninety-three thousand barrels per day. In turn, in natural gas Venezuela has ninety-one filling plants throughout the territory, however only one of them is operating located in the state of Anzoátegui and this stopped producing 220,000 barrels of propane gas per day for just fifteen thousand barrels that do not meet national demand.
The shortage of gas in cylinders and bottles has forced a large part of the Venezuelan population to look for other alternative means for cooking their homes and food, among them the options range from electric stoves to wood and charcoal stoves. The states that suffer the most from this aggravated situation are those that are far from the main cities and the capital of the country. 85% of Venezuelans depend on the cylinder when it reaches the communities through PDVSA gas since they do not have domestic gas service through the pipeline. What happened to gas production? Throughout the country, daily protests and strikes can be observed on the main roads demanding the delivery of domestic gas to the communities.
By 2000, the late former president Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías announced various projects and plans that promised to turn our country into a gas power, creating the National Gas Entity (ENAGAS). The main promise was to greatly reduce the use of gas cylinders in Venezuelan homes and to send the gas through pipes. A decade after those promises and plans and projects that were perceived but not executed, the scarce gas production and the neglect in the filling plants can be evidenced. Another of the gas projects with a large investment of about three billion US dollars is located in the state of Sucre, the project is called Mariscal Sucre and its objective was to supply domestic gas, petrochemicals, industry, the electricity sector and for export.
The north of the Paria Peninsula saw the birth of the Mariscal Sucre offshore gas project, which aimed to exploit the gas fields and which encompassed the fields of: Rio Caribe, Mejillones, Dragón and Patao. The large investment for this project began in 2006 and it was hoped that by the end of 2008 or the beginning of 2009 the first production of liquefied natural gas would be generated. The state oil company (PDVSA) predicted to generate a production of about 1200 million cubic feet of gas daily plus 20,000 barrels of condensed gas per day, which implied innumerable economic income and a source of work for the Sucre state. To all this was added the construction of the gas complex in the west, the gas of the llanero axis, and the Delta Caribe project, none of this materialized and once again corruption and waste appeared in the country. In 2017, President Nicolás Maduro affirmed that the country had not been able to advance in gas production.
Once again, due to the wrong policies in these last twenty years of government, the citizens are submerged in a great shortage of gas supply, some communities assure that they have been waiting for years for the service. For this end of the year many Venezuelan medres will cook under the oppressive smoke of the firewood as their ancestors did. The power country that we intended to be submerged under the ashes of the illusions and hopes of millions of Venezuelans who trusted in this system and that has led us to social, economic, cultural and political regression.
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