from Hacker News

How Low Can Venezuelan Oil Production Go?

by sudouser on 6/24/18, 8:42 PM with 1 comments

• by tbihl on 6/24/18, 9:19 PM

  If there is any floor whatever in how unproductive an industry can become when faced with a destabilizing government, it would probably be tied to old technology. In other words, how much production can they get with really old, disused equipment that the Venezuelan producers might be able to buy from people around the world.

  Anything more optimistic underestimates the complexity of industrial processes and the extent to which so much of the stuff is expendable. The machinery experienced by most people is their car, which has extremely light use that allows it to reach obsolescence long before it ceases to be viable. On the other hand, perpetually used equipment in harsh environments fails on occasion, and there's enough of it that any sort of oil production should see constant failures. If you don't have a long,stable, and organized supply chain ready to handle those failures, things are going to go to hell pretty fast.