Oil producers surge ahead

Market liberalisation and an influx of émigré Venezuelan workers have been catalysts for a boom in Colombia’s energy sector, writes Andres Schipani

Some commentators compared it to Stalin’s purges. It was 2006 and Venezuela’s then-president, Hugo Chávez, said employees of PDVSA, the state energy company, who were not willing to side with him could leave. He also hinted that some might end up in prison.

“PDVSA’s workers are with this revolution, and those who aren’t should go somewhere else. Go to Miami,” Chávez said, referring to a Thermidorian reaction a few years earlier when, after a failed coup, his opponents led a two-month energy industry strike that crippled Venezuela’s economy.

After the strike, the president ...

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