Can Western companies save Venezuela’s oil sector? Do they want to?

After more than a year of crippling US sanctions, Venezuela’s once-thriving oil sector is a shell of its former self: its output just a fraction of its peak, its state-run oil company toxic to international investors, its pipelines crumbling, its refineries closed.

A new report from the Inter-American Dialogue argues that Western oil companies will be needed if Venezuela’s oil sector can be revived. The report details interviews with eight of the largest Western oil companies, some that have left Venezuela and some that remain, about the major hurdles facing the country’s oil sector, including US sanctions uncertainty, high taxes, and a shortage of workers and working infrastructure.

The authors of the report, Lisa Viscid, director, and Nate Graham, associate, of the Inter-American Dialogue’s energy, climate change & extractive industries program, stop by the podcast to discuss their findings.