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2/5 Venezuela is a founding member of OPEC their official statistics show its production (blue) is down 71% from its 1998 peak. Its sustainable capacity (max output in within 90 days and held for a year) is 1M barrels/day (orange). Venezuela is at its maximum now. https://t.co/H6a1ohxG3s 3/5 Why the big production decline? Socialist Hugo Chávez was elected in December 1998. He turned out to be a brutal dictator. Only to be replaced by an even more brutal dictator, Nicolás Maduro, when Chávez died in March 2013. 4/5 How bad was Venezuela under Maduro? Remember this story from 2017. The country has had eight more years of this abject poverty and suffering. https://t.co/bls3xixA1C 5/5 Venezuela has plenty of economic potential after 2030. But little will change to impact world markets (particularly crude oil production) in the weeks/months/few years in the immediate future.