The fuel that we import does not reach all who need it because “Venezuela now does not belong to everyone”, it belongs to the privileged sectors of the right and the new Bolivarian bourgeoisie, partners in the “Revolutionary” Government, which today line their pockets at the expense of the terrible crisis we live as a nation. They fill up and the population goes without. By Onaí. Full Text -> The Havana Times

Venezuela’s attorney general said on Thursday that 10 officials from state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) were arrested for allegedly diverting and selling some 3 million liters (792,516 gallons) of fuel illicitly, as long lines continue at petrol stations throughout the OPEC country due to shortages of gasoline and diesel. Full Text -> Reuters

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and yet the country has run out of gasoline. The socialist government has lost the capacity to extract oil from the ground or refine it into a usable form. The industry’s gradual deterioration was 18 years in the making, tracing back to then-President Hugo Chávez’s 2003 decision to fire the oil industry’s most experienced engineers in an act of petty political retribution. By AndrésFigueredoThompson. Full Text and Video-> Reason

After stealing crude from idled fields, Venezuelans then try to process it into fuel with makeshift refining tools, and the resulting gasoline is low-quality and damaging to car engines. The quantities of stolen crude are small, but they nevertheless show the desperation of Venezuelan people, who have been suffering for several years from the economic collapse in the country sitting atop of the world’s biggest crude oil reserves. By Tsvetana Paraskova. Full Text -> OilPrice

The sale of gasoline in socialist-controlled Venezuela is increasingly being controlled by socialist warlords in a similar manner to drug trafficking, Argentinian outlet InfoBae detailed in a report Friday. By Ben Kew. Full Text -> Breitbart

Meanwhile, the collapse of gas smuggling has been a boon for filling stations. A few years ago, there were only four in Cúcuta, a city of nearly a million people. Now, there are 39 stations. And in a bizarre twist, Albarracín, the former smuggler, claims that contraband is starting to flow in the opposite direction, with people taking Colombian gas into Venezuela. He says: “It’s been going on for the past two or three months because gasoline is so hard to find in Venezuela.” By John Otis. Full Text-> NPRNews

Hundreds of Venezuelans queued up in miles-long lines to try to fill their cars with subsidized gasoline over the weekend, a week after President Nicolas Maduro launched a new dual-price system aimed at easing an acute fuel shortage. By Vivian Sequera, Deisy Buitrago. Full Text-> Reuteres

The long queues for gasoline in Venezuela are suffocating and humiliating. There, vans have mattresses in the back to sleep on at night, people bring beach chairs to sit in the street, pets lie down at the feet of their owners, some people play dominoes and others use their car door to cover themselves while urinating in the street. By Edgary Rodríguez R. Full Text -> Global Comment