The year started with a flurry of news in which the subsurface played a prominent role. Greenland had been simmering for a while, but the lifting of Maduro from Venezuela came as a huge surprise to many. Immediately, questions around the rebuilding of oil infrastructure started circulating, which has been ongoing until today.
Instead of putting in our two cents, we look back at the Apertura, the last time Venezuela opened its doors to foreign oil companies.
One of them was bp, and we tell the story of how they redeveloped Pedernales in the Orinoco delta. Not because it is THE example, but because it is AN example of how things can pan out. We talked to both local people and expats who worked on Pedernales and shared their fascinating stories.
And that is not the only Venezuela-themed article in this issue of the magazine. We also talked to two former PDVSA employees who lost their jobs in the early 2000’s shortly after Chavez took to power and fired almost 20,000 PDVSA employees who had joined a strike against the regime. Even though it is more than 20 years ago, people are still concerned about repercussions, which is why we spoke to them anonymously.
Apart from the two articles on Venezuela, this issue is packed with content from all over the world, as always, and reports on behind-the-scenes developments in addition to insights from a wide range of contributors.
