Venezuela's oil production drops by half during blackouts

Rolling blackouts across much of the country that started on March 7 paralyzed most of the country’s oil wells and rigs, which have slowly come back online. Oil output averaged less than 600,000 bpd during the blackouts, the people said, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. For the full month, daily production was 890,000 bbl, according to a Bloomberg survey of officials, analysts and ship-tracking data. The loss of production due to the blackouts deals another blow to Venezuela’s already-crippled oil industry, already reeling from years of mismanagement and U.S. sanctions that removed its biggest customer. The nation’s crude output, one of the few sources of cash for Nicolas Maduro’s regime, has tumbled by two-thirds since before PDVSA workers went on strike in December 2002. More…