Venezuela's Oil Problem

Hugo Chavez had a crummy January. Hammered by a slugging economy and 24 percent a year inflation, the Venezuelan president prepared for his 11th anniversary in office with 61 percent of his countrymen believing they’re on the wrong path. But there ought to be at least one opportunity for Chavez’s salvation: his country’s plentiful oil reserves. A study by the U.S. Geological Survey last week found the Orinoco oil belt to have almost twice as much black gold –- 513 billion barrels in full — than previously thought.

What would be a boon to most other countries has become a shame for Chavez, who seems to have shot himself in the foot.
When the prickly Latin American leader nationalized parts of the Orinoco in 2007 to ensure he had enough oil for his own brood, he kicked out the bigger players in the region, including the U.S., and seized a chunk of their assets, starting a geyser of reparations lawsuits—an unmistakable excuse never to trust him again. Now desperate for the money to flow again, he told reporters earlier this month that foreign oil investment has become vital to Venezuela. And he might still get it.

Newsweek