Venezuela’s capacity to produce some much-needed gasoline and diesel of its own hinges on a single oil play. To tap it, the Nicolas Maduro regime is willing to cannibalize the country’s crumbling energy infrastructure to pay contractors with scrap metal. Unlike the tar-like crude from Venezuela’s Orinoco region, the light oil from Monagas state is the only kind that’s easy to process into fuel at the country’s aging refineries. It’s also the only area where production doesn’t require the help of sanction-wary partners. So, with the U.S. considering further steps to curb the country’s fuel imports, cash-strapped state producer Petroleos de Venezuela SA is offering to pay for major repairs at pumping stations and compression plants in Monagas with scrap metal and parts from idled oil facilities, people familiar with the situation said, asking not to be named because the information isn’t public. The move follows failed attempts to […]