Phil Stewart

You know, the Venezuelans, I think, used to produce about 7% of the world's crude.

And I think now it's down to like 1%.

And as a comparison, just for context, you know, people talk about Venezuela as this massive, you know, the world's largest oil reserves, blah, blah, blah.

But the truth is they produce about the same amount as the U.S.

state of North Dakota.

just North Dakota.

And, and so, you know, right now, like their industry is not, you know, this, this Titan, uh, and powerhouse, it's, it's kind of, it's kind of, you know, not doing so well.

And, and from folks that, that Reuters has talked to, you know, for the, the Venezuelan industry has really been plagued by, you know, uh, corruption and mismanagement.

And it will take a, it'll take a long time to fix all that.

If you bring an American company and they're going to want to rebuild everything, you know, that takes, that takes a lot of time.

So, you know, Reuters doesn't know.

I personally don't know exactly what that means, but we assume that that means they're talking about the nationalization of the oil industry.

that U.S.

companies used to be operating there and during the Hugo Chavez years, particularly in the early 2000s.

He really did take a lot of – he made a lot of efforts to bring the oil industry under state control and really make U.S.

companies either leave or become very – What did they take?

Well, they canceled contracts that the U.S.

companies had, told the companies that they either had to become, I think, essentially contractors or leave.

And I think a lot of the companies left.

So that's the history there.