Skeptic on Maduro $50 million bounty

Oil price continues declining, mostly below $65 a barrel: which doesn't concern Argentina whose Vaca Muerta fields are being developed by YPF Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales, which is taking possession of former France Total Energies assets, in partnership with other international companies. They claim they will be fine producing, even if oil drops below $50 a barrel, as long as they invest wisely. However, they have taken a few risks down. Their calculations provide some restraint whenever oil prices decline.

Trinidad and Tobago's prime minister seems to moderate her previous accusations on Venezuela, which means that gas explorations in Dragon could be restarted in the short or medium term. Chevron already dispatched oil tankers from the Gulf of Mexico into Aruba and Venezuela, to take the first load of Boscán crude after license renewal by OFAC. There will be some limited oil export activity from Venezuela into the United States during this month of August. However, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump have issued a doubling of reward for capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro: on the grounds of drug trafficking through the Sun Cartel, to which Mexico's president Claudia Sheinbaum quickly responded that Mexico has no connections with Venezuelan drug activities.

Mexican drug cartel traffic is completely independent from Venezuelan drug traffic; however, Venezuelan, Colombian, Bolivian and in general South American drug traffic is mostly cocaine, not fentanyl. The issue in the United States is fentanyl, which is mostly supplied by Canada and Mexico. United States is doing nothing to counter demand, as the American population is well known for being extremely addicted to all kinds of drugs. Popular culture including music enhances usage of recreational drugs. This widespread usage of drugs in the United States provides questions to their military: whether they are actually able to complete extraction operations like the one suggested by Marco Rubio and Donald Trump regarding the Venezuelan leadership. The only evidence we have is that Chevron is doing business as usual.

Ordinary Venezuelans are being affected by these United States decisions to harass our political leadership. Funds that were previously available for culture, education, and health will actually be diverted into national defense. It is expected that the Venezuelan leadership will construct even more bunkers and militarize the streets. Running errands in the city of Caracas nowadays is not recommended, as lots of police and military officials will stop pedestrians and car drivers asking them for licenses, and checking their cell phone in search of terrorist messaging. It is suspected that terrorism instigator María Corina Machado is hiding in the United States embassy, which has been closed for five years. It remains to be seen if the Venezuelan authorities will actually enter United States embassy soil. This wouldn't be a first: we remember something similar happened in 1979 in Iran. Former United States embassy in Iran is now a monument against American imperialism.

Chevron, ExxonMobil and other American oil companies are aware that South American oil opportunities are gigantic. If South America unites through pipelines between Venezuela and Argentina as previously discussed, our continent would become so competitive that we would not only drive down the global oil price significantly, but we could actually put oil industries of other countries out of business. North American corporations that are looking for profits might probably be treated respectfully by South American governments that need investment. Such corporations might leverage how much they can invest outside of the United States, without being imposed sanctions or betraying the America first dogma. America first applies very well to only domestic American companies, but American multinationals are probably not pleased with the American first dogma: it is an obstruction to their global prominence goals.

Competition with European and Asian oil firms is not a good sign for American multinationals, which would like to remain competitive, knowing that opportunities in the United States decline. Shale operations are more expensive per barrel than conventional operations in most other countries. Public opinion in Venezuela remains bored of this situation. The government as usual is not doing much to improve. Radicalism asks for clandestinity, encouraging impossible protests that will lead people into jail. Recklessness is not a solution either. Few remaining opposition are measured: they could go into office, constrained to municipalities and the new national assembly which will start functioning in January 2026.

It remains to be seen if a $50 million bounty for whoever captures Nicolás Maduro, or a $25 million for whoever captures Diosdado Cabello, or a $15 million for whoever captures Vladimir Padrino Lopez will actually do anything. Accounting policy and budget analysts in the Venezuelan government, will just divert resources so that security spending is doubled: everything else will collapse. The collapse of Venezuelan society seems to be a joint venture between the Venezuelan government, the Venezuelan extremist opposition, and the United States regime. It sounds like our only hope is that international petroleum companies come to our rescue. Hopefully they will deal with Venezuelan citizens, providing hints on how to develop oil responsibly. Cleanup of past mismanagement should occur.

Venezuelan mood is sour. It is obvious that hardline policy was never able to oust Cuban regime out of power. Hardline policy will not oust Venezuelan regime out of power either. We will probably get into December with very little money to spend, it will become expensive to celebrate festivities. We will look for another year of disgrace, unless we start redeveloping our oil industry. Many of the proceeds will go into securing the government's safety, as it is being accused of drug trafficking. United States has decided not to confront their own drug consumption habits, so they want to penalize other countries for their addictions. It looks like Brazil is also getting fed up because of the tariffs. President Lula da Silva said that he will speak to president Modi of India or Xi Jin Ping of China. They intend to accelerate the BRICS currency. Once we get the BRICS currency: oil will hopefully be traded in that currency, eliminating the differential that penalizes Venezuelan oil exports.

Venezuelan oil continues at $51 or maybe $48 a barrel, if it has declined even further because of the Brent benchmark decline. This means that also in Venezuela we will apply the American maxima of drill, baby drill, which is probably not occurring much in Texas or the rest of the United States. If they were drilling a lot in the United States of their expensive shale, they would have no need for Venezuelan heavy crude: which is in high demand in many refineries in the Gulf of Mexico as shown by Valero and Chevron deals.

We are also expecting the presidential results in Guyana. If a candidate other than Irfaan Ali gets into power, possibilities of peace between Venezuela and Guyana may increase: as trade opportunities between the two countries will suddenly gain importance. As the region continues its slow but steady integration process, it becomes significant that Nvidia, and other chip making artificial intelligence supplies are overvalued. All economic and financial charts show they are at unsustainable maxima, even more than during the dotcom era. As a user of artificial intelligence during the last few months, I have realized shortcomings: because artificial intelligence many times amplifies whatever lie is programmed by programmers. Artificial intelligence provides political opinions which are biased, according to social media hype.

We are seeing in many countries that there is a growing disconnection: between the fantasy of social media and the reality of everyday life. María Corina Machado, for example, has tried to promote protests in Venezuela: a country where nobody wants to protest anymore because we don't want to go into jail. She uses artificial intelligence images not reflecting anyone in particular. Contents written by artificial intelligence are easy to spot. My own use of artificial intelligence will be restricted to very specialized searches on cultural and environmental activities, in the various countries where I am designing my road and pipeline project. It may also be useful in getting additional details about oil fields and refineries which had already been reliably verified, through secondary and tertiary sources not involving artificial intelligence. It seems that one's own thinking process is best, though slower.

Even though of course a human being is much slower, than an artificial intelligence that can provide you a 1,000 page essay in a minute. We have for example the conviction of Colombian ex-president Alvaro Uribe, which is 1,000 pages long. It was published in a matter of a couple of days. That was probably a document produced by artificial intelligence, because no lawyer can compile a 1,000 page treaty in 2 days, not even in 5 days. When I get a problem with any computer application and I need to contact customer service, most times the questions and answers just do not respond, so I appreciate whenever I get to a website which is clearly organized and explains in plain language, or slightly scientific language whatever people are asking.

I got to a point in my learning curve of artificial intelligence where diminishing returns suggest that: the more I use artificial intelligence, the less results I will get. It looks like algorithms of Google and of YouTube also realize that: they prefer to position original content that is made by a human being because it teaches something new, rather than something produced by artificial intelligence: which is probably a cut and paste of different sources. That can actually confuse you because it is a lot of unorganized data, only the most obvious patterns are observed; however, new patterns that maybe can make a person look crazy are the ones that eventually become fashionable. A compelling case requires full attention to detail because every sentence, every paragraph has a hint that must be addressed. I have also realized that people who record YouTube shows every day tend to repeat over and over the same ideas. So to ensure fresh content, you need at least one day off.

Let's hope that South American and Caribbean countries start uniting with each other, because together we could get relieved of the impositions that we receive from other continents: that are permanently in war and want to place us into war as well.