Power failures that plunged Venezuela into darkness for much of March also briefly slashed the country’s crude production by half, according to people familiar with the situation. Rolling blackouts across much of the country that started on March 7 paralyzed most of the country’s oil wells and rigs, which have slowly come back online. Oil output averaged less than 600,000 barrels a day during the blackouts, the people said, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. For the full month, daily production was 890,000 barrels, according to a Bloomberg survey of officials, analysts and ship-tracking data. The loss of production due to the blackouts deals another blow to Venezuela’s already-crippled oil industry, already reeling from years of mismanagement and U.S. sanctions that removed its biggest customer. The nation’s crude output, one of the few sources of cash for Nicolas Maduro’s regime, has tumbled by two-thirds […]