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.
At the start of 2021, Venezuela’s Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami announced that national oil company PDVSA was targeting petroleum production of 1.5 million barrels per…
A massive surge in inflation is threatening Brazil’s post-pandemic economic recovery. Latin America’s largest economy was savaged by the coronavirus with Brazil suffering the third…
Global energy supermajor ExxonMobil is one of the few Western energy companies to invest in developing Guyana’s burgeoning oil industry. Since making the first high…
Venezuela’s profound economic and humanitarian crisis fails to attract the headlines it once did, particularly after the U.S. recognized interim president Juan Gauido’s May 2019…
Last year was extremely painful for Colombia’s economically crucial oil industry with Investment plunging to $2.05 billion, its lowest level since 2016, while petroleum production…
For over a decade academics and analysts have warned that Venezuela, which could soon be Latin America’s next failed state, is evolving into a regional…
Crisis-riven Lebanon appears on the brink of collapse once again. The deeply divided Mediterranean country, which was engulfed by a sectarian civil war for 15…
Nearly three decades ago the Soviet Union imploded and ceased to exist, leaving the U.S. as the last standing superpower and victor of the Cold…
For a decade, successive Argentine governments in Buenos Aires have enacted a range of policies aimed at reducing energy imports and exploiting the Latin American…
For as long as many people remember Colombia has been a violence riven country that has been a major hub in the global cocaine trade.…
Since the controversial 1899 decision which set the border between Venezuela and Guyana, Caracas has repeatedly contested the ruling, claiming the 61,000 square miles west…
The COVID pandemic has wreaked considerable damage on the economies of South America’s smaller fiscally fragile countries, with the former Dutch colony of Suriname hit…
After commencing exploration drilling in offshore Guyana in 2015 the world’s second largest publicly listed oil company by market cap ExxonMobil experienced stunning success. In…
In a little over a decade Latin America’s largest economy Brazil has become a leading global oil producer. At the end of 2020, Brazil was…
Venezuela’s near-collapse and strict U.S. sanctions are creating an opportunity for Russia, Iran and China to strengthen their presence in Latin America, a region that…
The oil-dependent South American country Ecuador, which left OPEC in January 2020 to avoid production quotas, has embarked on an ambitious plan to double its…
In a stunning turn of events, the Taliban swept across Afghanistan seizing the capital Kabul nearly three weeks ago and taking control of the country…
Peru’s oil industry has been under considerable pressure for some time. A combination of long-running political turmoil, community dissent and the pandemic are weighing heavily…
Conflict-torn Colombia’s economically crucial oil industry continues to labor under the pressure of an array of threats.After being severely impacted by the pandemic oil output…
The Biden administration, along with U.S. intelligence and military agencies, was stunned by the gains made by the Taliban which saw them seize the Afghan…