User:Ank221024/sandbox

Selected article: The Crisis in Venezuela (Economic / political unrest since 2010)

To search for this article, I simply looked up "Venezuelan Crisis" on Wikipedia. While looking at Venezuelan-specific headlines on Reuters I was struck by how many issues currently plague the country, and I wanted a more general article to focus on the diversity of their issues. Most of the issues surrounding the country, including the issues regarding Maduro, redirect to the article. The article is pretty poor, it currently has a 'C' rating on the talk page, it's organized pretty poorly, which is recognized on the talk page.

3-5 Additional Articles:

Suitcase scandal

CANTV

2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt

I love to focus on the relation between Venezuelan politics and their nationalized oil company, PDVSA

Wikipedia has a more factual rundown of the history of the company, but has little to say about the nature of the company in terms of its political use, something I find really interesting and crucial to understanding the current crisis in Venezuela.

Political Actors Section:

MAS is an interesting group (with not too much on their wikipedia page) that has tie ins to the old Marxist Guerilla group MIR. They seem to be an important presence in the Venezuelan political climate, but the details on their actions seem skimpy in the english wikipedia page.

Movement for Socialism (Venezuela)

PDVSA Changes (Rough Draft)
Misc. Information to add (in addition to cleaning up sections)

In ‘capacity’ section

PDVSA relies heavily on the Orinoco Oil Belt in northern Venezuela as their main oil source, the crude oil they extract from it refined into a fuel eponymously named ‘Orimulsion’.

In 2010s section

The two largest buyers of Venezuelan petroleum are the United States and China, respectively.

PDVSA was, however, able to add Russia’s Rosneft as an extraction partner in 2013, with the anticipation of extracting 2.1 million barrels of petroleum per day.

Apetura

With the 1976 nationalization, each previous multinational operator was converted into an affiliate PDVSA, such as Lagoven (Standard Oil), Maraven (Shell), and Llavonen (Mobil); these affiliates served in an administrative structure underneath both PDVSA and the Venezuelan Ministry of Energy. The opening up of the Venezuelan oil industry, or Apetura, was initialized with a Venezuelan Supreme Court decision in favor of Lagoven which removed older laws prohibiting cooperation with MNCs on Venezuelan land. From 1993 through 1998, PDVSA split extraction rights with multiple multinational companies in arrangements called “strategic associations”, in effect trading Venezuelan crude for the efficiency that came from outside expertise and technology. These “strategic associations” were controversial; Venezuela was able to maximize profits from the belt, at the cost of small taxes on the multinational companies and the loss of sovereign control over their own resources. With Chavéz’s election, Venezuela’s attention became increasingly oriented on complying with OPEC; as oil prices collapsed in the late 1990s keeping the arrangements and conforming to OPEC regulations became impossible, leading to an end of the arrangements for the time being.

Chavez

End of 90s Section

Before the election of Chavéz, PDVSA ran more or less autonomously, making oil decisions based on its own forecasts to increase profits. Chavéz, once he came to power, unlocked PDVSA and effectively turned it into a direct government arm who’s profits would be injected into social spending. The result of this was the creation of “Bolivarian Missions”, oil funded social programs targeting poverty, literacy, hunger, and more. With the Apetura, PDVSA became the de facto economic legislator of Venezuela, with many of its managers becoming active in Venezuelan politics and serving as national representatives in economic summits. Chavez continued with the trend of blurring the lines between the government and PDVSA, but made social welfare the priority. During his campaign, Chavéz repeatedly remarked that PDVSA was now too powerful and autonomous, and its managers acted against the good of greater Venezuela. Chavéz turned the post-Apetura PDVSA into a political issue by associating its new neoliberal structure with the countries elites, energizing his working class supporters against the company.

Ongoing Issues (mix-in with 2010s section, reorganize)

Since 2015, a US Justice Department investigation into PDVSA corruption has resulted in 12 guilty pleas pertaining to a bribery scheme between PDVSA and its contractors, where certain members within the company would insure favorable treatment of vendors in exchange for kickbacks. These actions violate the US’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and are classified as conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Because of the ongoing hyperinflation and food shortage paychecks have become all but valueless, leading to mass resignation from workers. In addition, Maduro fired the head of PDVSA and replaced him with Major General Manuel Quevedo, placiating the army by giving them control of PDVSA. These recent developments have resulted in a fragmented structure and not enough workers to keep certain rigs operating continuously.

By the end of 2013, Venezuela produced 1.2 million barrels of oil per day from the Orinoco, falling short of its target of 1.5 million barrels.

Expansion on Politicization section

On the removal of 19,00 workers

Intevep, the research and development arm of PDVSA, reportedly lost 80% of its workers, severely damaged PDVSA ability to innovate and compete in the global petroleum market. PDVSA saw stagnant growth in the following era which was defined by a boom in oil prices. Between 2002 and 2012, ]incapacitating injuries to employees rose from 1.8 per million man hours to 6.2 (extremely high compared to 0.6 per million man hours for Pemex in 2012). Many ex-PDVSA employees moved to Alberta, where the oil consistency is similar to that of the Orinoco; as an effect the number of Venezuelans in Alberta has risen from 465 in 2001 to 3,860 in 2011. Many PDVSA workers migrated to Colombia and joined Ecopetrol, and are credited with helping the company attain huge profits throughout the 2010s.