Kenny Malone

This single resource fueling the entire country's economy meant that Venezuelans were completely at the mercy of these oil companies, though.

By the 1960s, Juan Pablo Perez Alfonso had become the oil minister of Venezuela.

He was working on a way to expand Venezuela's power even further by banding together with other petro-states like Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait.

He didn't want them to compete with each other, and he said that they should standardize how oil is bought and sold.

They became an oil cartel.

Now the OPEC countries were setting the rules, not the multinational oil companies like Chevron.

Boom and bust.

Monoeconomic vulnerability.

A classic feature of a country with a resource curse, many would argue.

At the time, because of politics, the U.S.

was not getting oil from Arab countries, which meant it was paying oodles of money to Venezuela for oil.

And with that agreement to share at least half their profits with Venezuela's government, it was bad.

Boom boom boom time, baby.

Yeah.

Caracas, the swinging city of Venezuela.

Now, while this was all happening, Venezuela was taking the next step on its march towards nationalization.

In 1976, Venezuela made good on its promise to fully take over the ownership of its oil from the multinational corporations.

No more 50-50 agreement.

The foreign companies could stay, but under strict rules.

They would essentially be contractors of the state-run oil company.