This refinery shows how far the oncemighty Venezuelan oil industry has fallen

On August 25, 2012, at Punto Fijo, Venezuela, the wreckage of a car rests near the Amuay refinery after a large gas explosion ripped apart the country’s biggest oil refinery.

A dozen junked cranes and other heavy equipment stand in disrepair. Empty oil barrels litter the passageways of the refinery. The air carries the toxic stench of spilled chemicals. The oncemanicured recreation areas of the adjacent employee apartments now are choked with weeds.

A job here no longer has much value. Of the 4,000 workers on the payroll in 2010, more than half have quit, and union officials say a majority of them have fled the country along with more than 2 million Venezuelans seeking a better life in Colombia, Peru, the U.S. or elsewhere.

Aguilar is a process operator, helping monitor the

refining process as crude oil moves through three distillers. Each morning, he walks two miles to the plant – a commute he once made on a company shuttle, before that benefit was discontinued.

His salary was once more than enough to take care of his wife and three children. But today, massive inflation means his paycheck and benefits amounts to less than $4 a month, enough to buy about 2 pounds of beef and a dozen eggs.

To retain employees, the company has started handing out food once a month. Each worker with perfect attendance for the month gets a bag containing corn flour, beans, cooking oil, sugar and two cans of tuna.

“We’ve lost all our contracted benefits, medical attention, the free cafeteria, transportation to work, even drinking water on the job site,” Aguilar said. “All we get are those bags of food.”

Now 43, he said he’s not sure how much longer he will remain at the refinery – or even in Venezuela.

“I’m afraid that the only option left to me will be to follow the same path that thousands of my fellow workers have taken,” he said.

Oil has long been the main driver of the Venezuelan economy. Production peaked in 2008 at 3.5 million barrels a day. Between 2016 and 2017, it fell 43 percent to 1.2 million barrels a day, and the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based think tank that tracks global oil production, recently predicted further declines in coming months.

Petroleos de Venezuela now imports various fuels to help the country meet some of its basic needs.

Its collapse stemmed from a slump in world oil prices, a shortage of workers, mismanagement, politics and U.S. sanctions that have made it difficult to maintain refineries and other infrastructure. As a result, the Venezuelan economy is now in its fourth year of recession.