Foreign oil companies in Venezuela feel the strain

As Venezuela’s oil industry crumbled over the past decade, there was one sector that remained standing: the country’s joint ventures with foreign companies, particularly the ones extracting heavy oil from the reserves of the Orinoco Belt. Those deposits of sludgy extra-heavy oil give Venezuela the world’s largest proved reserves, and foreign companies including Chevron, Total, Eni and Statoil have decided it is worth continuing to work there in spite of the country’s mounting problems.  More…