Instead of working to make VZ better for everyone they took the course of vilifying one group at a time and confiscating the wealth which was then concentrated to those in power. They even did this to foreign companies which had made investments there.

Eventually they ran out of other people's money. While not the fault of socialist policies no government ever really executes them because those in power still see themselves above the people and refuse to live under the same conditions.

This is not a socialism issue, any government run by the corrupt can end up here. It is more a failed form of fascism which also occurs in the US

Their economy is way too socialist. $204 billion of expenses for $131.8 inflation adjusted billion GDP.

the vast majority of their reserves are "heavy" crude. Which is much more expensive to refine. The oil slump certainly didn't help, but Chavez nationalizing the oil company and replacing competent engineers with cronies is what really fucked them. That and the general socialization of most of private industry.

"competent engineers with cronies is what really fucked them"

That' cannot be emphasized enough. This isn't the type of oil coming out of Texas or ND. It requires more money, infrastructure, and expertise to refine properly. Canada has this problem with the oil sands, but they have all three to deal with it.

They also have all of the professionals that left Venezuela.

When I consulted up there, most of the reliability engineering organizations were Venezuelans. Canada should send Venezuela a big thank you card for the amazing people they got due to Chavez driving out professionals.

Also if they would've sold the development rights to private companies those contracts would usually have a flat fee that is independent of production viability that the companies have to pay to maintain the rights, this alone would've been enough to keep them afloat.

Because they nationalized their energy sector and bet everything on it.

Because their oil is expensive to extract.

If the price of oil extraction in Venezuela for a barrel is 60 dollars and the market price is 40(the price in Saudi Arabia is very low), you have a serious problem.

You will even have to LOOSE money in order to sustain a regular extraction, hoping the price returns to higher levels.

If you stop production, sometimes it is very expensive to restart it again, as geological forces over time close the things that you open, so you need to maintain some activity.