Venezuela has black gold in the subsoil but poverty on the surface

Monagas (Venezuela), Apr 12 (EFE), (Camera: Ivan Cardenas).- They get up at dawn, but no longer to go to the inactive black gold wells that surround their communities. The men of Venezuela's oil towns, who once extracted the crude that made the country prosperous and is now so badly needed due to the world energy crisis, now have to plant crops, repair bicycles or hunt to be able to feed their families.

They are men from eastern Venezuela who grew up in the villages of northwestern Monagas, a state part of the Orinoco Oil Belt "Hugo Chavez", where, according to data from Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the reserve amounts to 279,117 million barrels, far below the 300,878 million in 2016.

But production is no longer enough to sustain the oil towns. Those who live in Punta de Mata or Santa Barbara -in Monagas- suffer the decline of the industry, which went from producing an average of 3 million barrels per day (bpd) to 788,000, at present, according to February figures from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Investment and maintenance are at a minimum, and profits are not enough to generate the employment and wealth of yesteryear, so that the reduced income goes only to the State coffers, according to Héctor Prieto, a former oil worker and resident of the community of Tejero Viejo - Santa Bárbara.