CARACAS: Venezuela’s oil revenues plummeted 40.7 percent last year due to sinking global oil prices, the nation’s state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) said in its annual report released on Sunday.
PDVSA — the world’s fifth-largest oil company — earned US$72.2 billion in revenues last year, a sharp drop from 2014’s US$121.9 billion. Its net profit fell 19 percent to US$7.3 billion. The first half of this year saw the value of Venezuela’s crude oil tumble to an average of US$31.15 per barrel, the Ministry of Petroleum and Mining said on Friday last week.
The sector’s nose-dive has exacerbated the nation’s already dire economic situation in which 80 percent of basic consumer products, including food and medicine, are in short supply. Soaring prices and shortages have, in turn, led to riots, looting and vigilante justice.
