Matthew Smith

Latest articles from Matthew

• Ecuador Scrambles To Clean Up Its Oil Industry

  Published 06 January 2021 | viewed 3,182 times

  The last year was difficult for Ecuador’s beaten-down hydrocarbon sector. Aside from the severe fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and sharply weaker oil prices, the…

• Western Oil Majors Are Key To Reviving Venezuela’s Oil Industry

  Published 04 January 2021 | viewed 7,310 times

  Venezuela’s rapidly disintegrating oil industry, which is the backbone of its economy, is a mere shadow of what it once was, despite the founding OPEC…

• China Is Fueling South America’s Oil Boom

  Published 01 January 2021 | viewed 25,217 times

  Oil demand from China has been one of the few bright spots for a global petroleum industry severely impacted by a long-term global supply glut…

• Fracking Could Save Colombia From Economic Crisis

  Published 30 December 2020 | viewed 4,224 times

  Colombia country is facing its worst economic catastrophe of modern times because of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The IMF believes that the strife-torn Latin American…

• Can Venezuela’s Oil Industry Bounce Back With The Help Of Iran?

  Published 30 December 2020 | viewed 5,376 times

  After five years of plunging oil production and experiencing the near-collapse of its economically crucial petroleum industry and the worst peacetime economic crisis of the…

• Can Anything Stop Brazil’s Massive Oil Boom?

  Published 29 December 2020 | viewed 8,167 times

  The COVID-19 pandemic had a sharp impact on oil prices, creating considerable uncertainty over the outlook for energy demand around the globe. The ongoing global…

• Peru’s Oil Crisis Is Worsening

  Published 21 December 2020 | viewed 7,307 times

  A string of crises has engulfed Peru, Latin America’s sixth-largest economy, since the start of 2020. If the marked impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on…

• Colombia’s Oil Industry Could Stage A Comeback In 2021

  Published 20 December 2020 | viewed 6,310 times

  The last year has been rough for Colombia’s economically vital petroleum industry. Toward the end of 2019 and at the start of 2020 government and…

• Venezuela’s Crisis: A Cautionary Tale For Oil Nations

  Published 17 December 2020 | viewed 7,852 times

  The story of Venezuela’s rise to wealth and its now near collapse is a cautionary tale for countries rich in natural resources. The 1914 discovery…

• Another Corruption Scandal Engulfs Ecuador’s Oil Industry

  Published 15 December 2020 | viewed 2,745 times

  The trials and tribulations for Ecuador’s deeply embattled petroleum industry continue. If crumbling infrastructure, refinery outages and pipeline ruptures were not enough, the Andean country’s…

• Exxon’s Big Bet On Guyana’s Offshore Oil Basin Is Paying Off

  Published 14 December 2020 | viewed 15,684 times

  The growing oil boom in the offshore Guyana-Suriname Basin continues to gain pace. After making a series of spectacular discoveries in offshore Guyana energy supermajor…

• South America Set To Struggle With Stranded Oil Assets

  Published 10 December 2020 | viewed 3,603 times

  Sharply weaker oil prices and the COVID-19 pandemic are weighing heavily on the outlook for crude oil. It is not only U.S. shale oil and…

• Is Brazil’s Oil Boom In Danger?

  Published 30 November 2020 | viewed 4,019 times

  Brazil’s massive offshore oil boom, notably in the deepwater offshore pre-salt oilfields, is continuing to grow despite weaker oil prices and the sharp impact of…

• Venezuela’s Oil Crisis Is An Environmental Time Bomb

  Published 30 November 2020 | viewed 8,276 times

  The international media think tanks and government agencies have discussed at length the near failure of Venezuela, once Latin America’s most stable and developed nation,…

• The Single Biggest Threat To Venezuela's Future

  Published 29 November 2020 | viewed 5,339 times

  It was not too long ago that copious oil reserves such as the 303 billion barrels located in Venezuela, which are the world’s largest, were…

• Peru’s Oil Industry Is Engulfed In Crisis

  Published 26 November 2020 | viewed 4,549 times

  A combination of sharply weaker oil prices, inconsistent regulation, the COVID-19 pandemic, and constant conflict in the Amazon where most of Peru’s onshore oil industry…

• Can Colombia’s Oil Industry Stage A Comeback In 2021?

  Published 25 November 2020 | viewed 3,552 times

  Colombia’s economically crucial oil industry keeps showing signs of life as the oil rally extends into late-November 2020. The international benchmark Brent has finally crossed…

• How A Biden Presidency Could Boost Colombia’s Oil Industry

  Published 21 November 2020 | viewed 5,123 times

  The victory of Joe Biden in the U.S. presidential elections earlier this month is perceived by many analysts to be a positive development around the…

• Latin America’s Next Oil Hotspot

  Published 21 November 2020 | viewed 6,234 times

  Little known South American country Suriname, a Dutch colony which gained independence on 15 December 1954, is becoming one of the world’s hottest offshore drilling…

• Why Biden’s Approach To Venezuela Is So Important For Oil Markets

  Published 18 November 2020 | viewed 7,012 times

  In a hard-fought campaign Democrat Joe Biden won the November 2020 U.S. presidential race beating incumbent Donald Trump. There were considerable fears in the run-up…