Venezuela's Oil Value

Charlie Levesley
October 30, 2023

Submitted as coursework for PH240, Stanford University, Fall 2023

Introduction

Fig. 1: Venezuela's oil value every year from 2012 to 2021, from Table 1. [3] The graph shows an overall decrease in the total value of all oil produced in Venezuela between 2012 and 2021. (Image Source: C. Levesley)

95% of Venezuela's exports are oil. [1] Venezuela has dealt with fluctuations in its economy despite its high oil production. This may be due to internal mismanagement of the country's oil, such as politicization and corruption in Venezuela's state-owned oil company, PDVSA. [2] In this report, we will assess the total market value of Venezuela's oil over the last decade and observe how it has changed.

Analysis

Using industry data, we can multiply the production of oil barrels in Venezuela per day by the number of days in every year, using 366 days for leap years, to find the number of oil barrels produced per year from 2012 to 2021. [3] Multiplying the number of oil barrels produced per year in Venezuela by the average cost of one barrel for that year gives the annual cost of all the oil produced. This is listed in Table 1 and also shown in Fig. 1.

Conclusion

We can see that the value of Venezuela's oil has changed dramatically over the years. Venezuela's oil value was at its peak in 2013 at $95.9 billion and continued to decrease over the next seven years to $9.2 billion in 2020. However, the value increased between 2020 and 2021, to $16.3 billion, chiefly due to an increase in the world price of crude. This report reflects the reduction in Venezuela's oil over the last ten years, as well as the decrease in its value.

Year Production Price Total Value
2012   9.897 × 108 bbl y-1 $94.13 bbl-1 $9.32 × 1010 y-1
2013   9.782 × 108 bbl y-1 $97.99 bbl-1 $9.59 × 1010 y-1
2014   9.826 × 108 bbl y-1 $93.28 bbl-1 $9.17 × 1010 y-1
2015 10.454 × 108 bbl y-1 $48.71 bbl-1 $5.09 × 1010 y-1
2016   9.391 × 108 bbl y-1 $43.34 bbl-1 $4.07 × 1010 y-1
2017   8.103 × 108 bbl y-1 $50.70 bbl-1 $4.12 × 1010 y-1
2018   5.953 × 108 bbl y-1 $65.20 bbl-1 $3.88 × 1010 y-1
2019   3.730 × 108 bbl y-1 $57.03 bbl-1 $2.13 × 1010 y-1
2020   2.342 × 108 bbl y-1 $39.25 bbl-1 $0.92 × 1010 y-1
2021   2.387 × 108 bbl y-1 $68.10 bbl-1 $1.63 × 1010 y-1
Table 1: Production, price, and total value of oil in Venezuela from 2012 to 2021. [3]

© Charles Levesley. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.

References

[1] L. Viscidi, "Venezuela on the Brink: How the State Wrecked the Oil Sector - and How to Save It," Foreign Aff. 95, No. 5, 133 (2016).

[2] A. Kott, "Assessing Whether Oil Dependency in Venezuela Contributes to National Instability," J. Strateg. Secur. 5, No. 3, 69 (2012).

[3] "BP Statistical Review of World Energy," British Petroleum, June 2022, pp. 15-24.