In Venezuela, an egg costs the same as 93.3 million liters of fuel

An egg in Venezuela costs the same as 93.3 million liters of gasoline and, with a dollar, you can buy the contents of 14,600 trucks.: in the old oil power, hyperinflation and stagnant prices mean that fuel is given.

The paradox is that with the cheapest gasoline in the world, Venezuelans are facing cycles of scarcity, the last since last week, with queues of up to several days to fill the tank in different regions.

"Gasoline is free here," economist Jesús Casique told AFP.

An egg at the supermarket costs 933 bolivars, but at the gas station, a liter of gas costs 0.00001 bolivars.

A tank of 50 liters is filled with 0.0005, an amount impossible to pay with precision: the ticket of lower value corresponds to two bolivars after a reconversion monetary launched by the president Nicolás Maduro last August.

Five zeros were then subtracted from the bolivar, but the new notes were sprayed by hyperinflation that the IMF forecasts of 10 000 000% for this year. Parts do not exist.

"The little money you give the person who throws gas at the station is a good tip," because gasoline has virtually no cost, Henkel said. Garcia, director of Econometric, AFPTV.

A dollar, quoted on Tuesday at 5,546 Bolivars according to the Central Bank of Venezuela, buys 554.6 million liters of gasoline, enough to fill 222 Olympic swimming pools.

"How was it made so cheap, with rising inflation and a stagnant price of petrol," Garcia said.

The increase, a "taboo"

Maduro's 2018 adjustment plan provided for an increase in gasoline, even at international prices, for those who do not have the "Patria's Notebook", a document that gives access to subsidies and that the opposition sees it as a social control mechanism.

The increase has never materialized in the country that has the largest oil reserves, whose production has fallen to its worst level in three decades.

With this collapse, Venezuela is going through the worst crisis in its modern history.

For Maduro, the situation is the product of an "economic war" of the opposition and the United States to overthrow it. for its detractors, led by the head of the parliamentarian Juan Guaidó, fruit of Chavismo's years of misguided policies.

"The increase in gasoline has been a taboo (…). A large part of the political world think that the increase in gasoline can increase social pressure and lead to a political change, "said Garcia.

In 1989, after a price adjustment, a social epidemic known as "Caracazo" caused 300 deaths in Caracas and nearby towns, a ghost that flares up whenever an increase in price essence is mentioned.

Poor subsidizing the rich

For one liter of gasoline to be sold in Venezuela at an international price, it should reach 4,659 bolivars per liter, explained Casique.

The huge difference between this amount and what Venezuelans pay costs the state about $ 5,240 million a year, according to experts.

"Giving gasoline (…) is a very regressive subsidy, because those who have a car are the richest social group, it is a subsidy paid by those who do not. Have no car to those who have one, which is very damaging "says Garcia.

Venezuelan hardships, including power outages and shortages of basic necessities such as drugs, add to the lack of fuel.

For the moment, Venezuela refines only 100,000 barrels of gas a day, half of the demand being forced to import the rest, said opposition MP José Guerra.

But in a context of dollar drought due to the crisis, "we have no way to pay these 100,000 barrels," added Guerra, a former Central Bank executive.

The entry into force in late April of an oil embargo in the United States also makes it difficult to buy gas from US companies "that were the ones that normally supplied us," García said.

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