Venezuela will soon pass the point at which it will be unable to recover lost oil production if U.S. sanctions persist into next year, the federal government said on Wednesday. The Energy Information Administration said that Venezuela, the sole OPEC member in the Western Hemisphere, has lost about 100,000 barrels a day in production since February due to Trump administration sanctions. That means that annual production will be hard to make up, and the shortfall will likely place upward pressure on oil prices as new U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil imports kick in. “If sanctions persist, the country will likely be unable to restart the disrupted portion of production and the 100,000 b/d will become lost capacity,” the EIA said in its Week in Petroleum analysis. The EIA is forecasting that Venezuela crude oil production will continue to fall through at least the end of 2020, which reflects an […]