Source: Wikimedia Commons Photographer: Jim Olive Venezuela's state-owned oil company PDVSA [which stands for Petroleos de Venezuela SA] has been unable to stop the oil exporting country's crude output from slipping, according to Bloomberg. Since 2008, PDVSA's crude output has fallen each year. In 2013, PDVSA pumped out an average of 2.9 million barrels of oil per day. Last year, that slipped down to 2.79 million barrels of oil per day. This isn't what Venezuela was expecting and/or hoping for, as it set a target to boost oil output to 6 million barrels of oil per day by 2019. Even after PDVSA boosted the amount of money it spent on its upstream activities to $23 billion in 2014 from $14.2 billion in 2013 [keep in mind part of that large increase is due to Venezula's current hyper-inflation problem and the massive devaluation of its currency], its oil production continued to fall. Considering crude prices have been roughly cut in half over the past year and Venezuela has a history of nationalizing foreign assets, it looks like it will be nearly impossible for the country and the company to attract enough foreign investment to reach its lofty goals. Venezuela has quietly allowed more foreign investment in its oil and gas sector since Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro took over, as the country attempts to woe foreign expertise by allowing international oil and gas companies to play a bigger role in how the operation is run and by letting them share in a bigger slice of the profits. This change has been done "quietly", according to the New York Times, because Maduro's predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, made nationalizing Venezuela's oil and gas assets [including practically every other industry] the cornerstone of his populist policies. However, these policies have failed and now Venezuela remains desperate for cash as the country slips into a pretty bad recession while inflation soars over 60% and the value of its currency continues to plummet. To make matters worse, PDVSA's debt load increased by 5% to $45.7 billion in 2014 while the amount of money PDVSA owes to third-party oilfield service providers fell by 3% to $20.9 billion [a small plus but only on a relative basis]. Overall, I wouldn't get excited about Venezuela's oil and gas sector any time soon. Venezuela has more proven oil reserves than Saudi Arabia, according to OPEC, yet Venezuela's oil industry remains lackluster as many companies don't want to investment in a country that nationalized their assets just a decade ago and has yet to pay them back.