7th Simon Bolivar Public Lecture (Postponed until further notice)

CHALLENGES OF THE BOLIVARIAN DOCTRINE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE NEW GEOPOLITICS OF OIL INDUSTRY.

H.E. Arturo E. Gil Pinto, Ph.D.
arturogilpinto@gmail.com

Abstract

This lecture presents some of the challenges that the Venezuelan government are facing in managing its sovereign natural resources in light of the current global oil geopolitics. First, we analyse the history of the United States’ interference in the management of Venezuela’s oil resources as part of the Monroe doctrine that has been implemented through isolation towards the Venezuelan oil industry. The technical, financial and political aspects that the US administration are using to try to sink Venezuela’s main industry, with the ultimate objective to the control Venezuela’s oil reserves, are presented as a necessary tool for financial control and commercial of the world oil market. For the US, more than 302 billion barrels of oil is a necessary condition nowadays for market control that guarantees the profitability of new oil exploitation technologies such as hydraulic fracturing (fracking). Since 2003, the US initiated a policy to reduce dependence on Venezuelan oil, which allows it today to attack the production of Venezuelan crude through technological and financial restrictions, thus, isolates the Venezuelan oil industry.  Finally, the challenges presented for the Bolivarian Revolution are discussed in order to guarantee sovereign control over its natural resources within the framework of the new technologies of oil production and the geopolitics that have been generated from this new technological context.

Biodata

Dr Arturo Enrique Gil Pinto has served as Charge d’Affaires of the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the Republic of Korea since November 2018. He has been posted as Executive President at the Foundation Institute of Engineering for Research and Technological Development, Ministry of Popular Power for Science, Technology and Innovation (2012-2015) in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. He was also the Vice-Minister at the Ministry of Transport and Communication (2010-2015); and Engineering Project and Execution Director at the Ministry of Popular Power of Industries (2010) in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. He holds a Doctorate in Automation and Microelectronics from the University of Montpellier 2, Montpellier, France.