Matthew Smith is Oilprice.com's Latin-America correspondent. Matthew is a veteran investor and investment management professional. He obtained a Master of Law degree and is currently located in Latin America. Matthew writes on oil and gas, mining and infrastructure.
Ecuador’s beaten-down petroleum industry has been struggling to recover from a savage 2020 where pipeline failures, the COVID-19 pandemic, corruption scandals, and heightened political uncertainty…
Crude oil prices had a rocky start to 2021. There are plenty of wildcards which will continue to fuel price volatility for the foreseeable future,…
Over the last decade it has been a wild ride for Ecuador’s trouble-plagued but economically crucial oil industry. Former president Rafael Correa’s heavy-handed policies, centered…
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is well-known for his saber-rattling, much of which is designed to distract Venezuelans from the severe economic crisis sweeping the country…
Peru has struggled for over a decade to build its hydrocarbon sector and boost crude oil reserves and production. 2020 was particularly difficult for the…
It was roughly a decade ago when hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, was identified as a crucial means for boosting Colombia’s meager hydrocarbon reserves and…
There are signs that the crisis engulfing Venezuela’s shattered petroleum industry could start to ease. In a recent televised address, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro stated…
After a series of notable oil discoveries in offshore Guyana and then Suriname over the last six years the impoverished South American nations became a…
As many developed and even emerging nations aggressively pursue renewable energy targets with a focus on winding down the extraction of fossil fuels, strife-torn Colombia…
A spat over fuel prices last month saw Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro replace the CEO of national oil company Petrobras Roberto Castello Branco, who is popular…
After a harsh 2020 and slow post-pandemic recovery Argentina’s hydrocarbon sector has come roaring back to life. A combination of substantially higher oil prices, government…
Since the U.S. presidential election started in earnest toward the end of 2020 there has been considerable speculation regarding President Biden’s plans for crisis-torn Venezuela.…
Latin America’s fourth largest economy, Colombia, remains under considerable pressure. Even the latest oil price rally, which saw the international Brent benchmark gain 36%, has…
There has long been an association between petroleum production, political repression, poor governance, and increased internal conflict. For strife-torn oil-dependent Colombia, which is claimed to…
A tiny remaining bastion of France’s former colonial empire, French Guiana in northeastern South America, was once thought to possess tremendous petroleum potential which could…
The COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 crude oil price crash and ongoing global petroleum supply glut have done little to slow the growth of South America’s massive…
Peru’s oil industry is in crisis, with 2020 being one of its worst years on record. It was a year marred by the harsh fallout…
Saudi Arabia’s surprise January 2021 one million barrel per day production cut has sparked a sense of bullishness over the outlook for crude oil. The…
Major energy companies are becoming increasingly sensitive to drilling in high-risk environments such as the Arctic, Barents Sea and the Amazon Basin. A combination of…
In a surprise move, President Biden has withdrawn U.S. support for a Saudi-led military campaign against Houthi rebels in war-torn Yemen, describing the country’s bitter…