On May 16th, Iván Freites, head of the Oil Workers Union of Falcon State, denounced that the Paraguaná refinery is producing 170,000 gasoline barrels per day, when it should be producing 956,000. Hours later, long lines of up to 200 vehicles started rolling into gas stations all over the country, especially in Merida, Tachira, Lara and Zulia. Things are so bad, that drivers are coming to blows over fuel . Zulia, Venezuela’s oil heartland, has been suffering fuel shortages for months. Guillermo Blanco, regime minister for Refinement and the Petrochemical Industry, announced rationing schedules for gas stations, accelerating the region’s collapse. For instance, there’s barely any public transportation and shop owners, who have been forced to purchase power generators due to the electric crisis, are finding it hard to keep them running without gas. For Freites, the root cause of these problems is evident: corruption and the dismantling of […]