Amid the oil production crisis in Venezuela, with prices on the ground and distribution at risk from debt and sanctions, President Nicolás Maduro is calling on crude oil as a manna to obtain the Covid-19 vaccines he demands. country.
Immunization plans have been delayed because they were unable to obtain the necessary vaccines promised by the President, or because they refused to receive those from AstraZeneca due to the risks the government said their application poses, while agreeing to part to participate in Cuban drug trials.
With this spin of the wheel, Maduro seeks a Copernican spin with the little oil he has as a base, as the second wave of Covid-19 worsens day by day and threatens to completely collapse the weak hospital system. These are some keys that allow us to get a glimpse of the plan’s viability.
1.- AN UNEXPECTED PROPOSAL
With the world advancing on vaccination, Venezuela has only received 250,000 doses of Sputnik-V and 500,000 doses of the Chinese Sinopharm, although it has not published official data on how many of them it has already vaccinated.
Faced with this situation and Venezuela’s difficulties in accessing some of its resources, blocked by sanctions, the president launched a risky bet that, not because it was obvious, was unexpected.
“I approved (the proposal) today, dedicating oil for vaccines (…). I would spend some of its production to guarantee all the vaccines that Venezuela needs, oil for vaccines,” he said at 29 March.
2.- A PRODUCTION THAT FALLS IN BARRENA
On January 12, the head of state confirmed in his annual report that the pumping of the state oil company PDVSA fell 69% between 2015 and 2019, a phenomenon that caused the country to lose revenues of approximately $ 102,500 million.
The president then presented a chart assuring that Venezuela was producing 2,817,000 barrels of oil per day in March 2015.
On the other hand, Vice President and Minister of Oil, Tareck El Aissami, explained on February 19 that Venezuela produced an average of 400,000 barrels per day in 2020, putting the country traditionally considered “oil” even lower than its neighbor Colombia. . , which extracted nearly 700,000 barrels per day.
3.- DEBT OBLIGATIONS
The debt has not stopped growing to the point that last September Venezuela proposed to the bondholders of the republic and state-owned companies PDVSA and Electricidad de Caracas to interrupt payments of interest and capital, citing problems to be made against the commitments of the economic sanctions imposed by the United States.
To pay off some of the debt incurred, Venezuela has made several pledges with China, Russia, India, Cuba and Petrocaribe, an alliance that includes several Caribbean countries, which are filled with crude oil deliveries.
Some of the production is destined for those countries, including the two that have already sent vaccines to Venezuela: China and Russia.
4.- FROM CALENDAR TO CALENDAR
Initially, the government assured that the mass vaccination would begin in April, but as early as the beginning of the month, and in the absence of official data, it seems impossible that this process could have started with just 750,000 doses, affecting 375,000 people. would immunize in a country of 30 million inhabitants.
After the bet on Sputnik V, the Sinopharm vaccines came in without warning. Subsequently, the other Russian drug (the EpiVac Corona) was approved and now Maduro has announced the arrival of two Cuban drugs in the test phase, that is, the efficacy of which is unknown.
Meanwhile, he has refused to receive vaccines from AstraZeneca, which Venezuela assigned as part of the Covax mechanism, while on another occasion he would be an asset, such as the “oil for vaccines” plan. With these prospects, a new large-scale vaccination schedule for the coming months seems complicated.
5.- OFFICIAL SILENCE
In Venezuela it is not strange, but in this case it is striking. There is no official information on the course of the vaccination, it is not known how many doses have been administered and to whom.
Faced with this lack of data, complaints from health workers who have not received them are piling up and others assuring that corruption is unleashed in distribution.
It is not known, meanwhile, how much the government paid for the vaccines received, when the next ones will arrive, or which sectors will be prioritized.