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.
The June 2022 electoral victory of Colombia’s first-ever leftist President, Gustavo Petro, was heralded as a moment of monumental change for the strife-torn country. It represented a…
A frequently overlooked aspect of Venezuela’s immense economic and humanitarian crisis is the tremendous environmental damage occurring as a result of autocratic president Nicolas Maduro ruthlessly exploiting the petrostate’s…
For a country of under one million, former British colony Guyana has emerged as a fossil fuel powerhouse. A series of more than 30 high-grade…
Tiny South American nation of less than one million, Guyana has emerged as the latest drilling hotspot in South America, after decades where the regional oil industry…
The deeply impoverished South American country Suriname was sharply impacted by the 2020 pandemic and has yet to recover. A snowballing economic crisis that took…
After a series of major oil discoveries in its territorial waters, the impoverished South American country of Guyana emerged as one of the world’s hottest…
The outlook for Colombia’s economically crucial oil industry is bleak. Not only has it failed to recover from the pandemic and return to a pre-2020 tempo of…
In less than a decade, the economy of what was once South America’s wealthiest country, Venezuela, collapsed. The oil-rich country, which once pumped over three…
Recent discoveries in offshore Guyana and Suriname have brought the spotlight firmly back on South America’s hydrocarbon sector, with analysts calling the Guyana Suriname Basin…
For nearly two decades, South America’s largest economy Brazil has been reaping a tremendous economic windfall from a massive oil boom that kicked off with…
Dark fleet is a term used to describe the assortment of tanker vessels which conceal their locations so as to enable the transportation of illicit cargoes…
After Exxon’s string of high-quality oil discoveries in offshore Guyana delivered more than 11 billion barrels of oil resources South America started garnering considerable attention…
Despite a long history of being Latin America’s best-managed national oil company Colombia’s Ecopetrol is swamped by uncertainty. For over a decade, the integrated energy…
Colombia’s economically crucial energy patch is facing a grave crisis due to its shortage of proven oil and natural gas reserves coupled with leftist President…
With more than 35 oil discoveries since 2015 the impoverished South American microstate of Guyana has emerged as the world’s hottest frontier drilling location. Global energy…
Colombia’s first-ever leftist president emerged victorious from the July 2022 election run-off after running a broad reform-based campaign with a focus on transitioning the Andean country…
Colombia has been locked in a vicious multiparty civil war for control of the country’s vast natural wealth, including fertile agricultural land, fossil fuels, and gold,…
The last year has been particularly turbulent for the former South American Dutch colony of Suriname. A rapidly deteriorating economy, violent anti-government protests, and rising…
The impoverished South American micro-state Guyana is in the midst of an epic oil boom which has seen the former British colony emerge as the…
Colombia’s beleaguered oil industry is facing a series of volatile headwinds as it struggles to return to a pre-pandemic tempo of operations. Petroleum output despite…