December 9, 2015

Report on Venezuela: Oil and Politics in the 21st Century

Gustavo Coronel
Independent Consultant on the Geopolitics of Energy and Latin American Public Policy

Gustavo Coronel had a 32-year career in the international petroleum industry in Venezuela (1955-1987), Holland, Algiers, Indonesia, most of Latin America and the United States with Royal Dutch- Shell, Phillips Petroleum and Petroleos de Venezuela; he was a founding member of the Board of Directors of PDVSA. He was head of the Hydrocarbons Projects Division, Inter-American Development Bank, 1983-1987 and Chief Operations Officer of the Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana, a $35 billion Venezuelan government Conglomerate, 1994-1995.

Since 2006, he has been an independent Consultant on the Geopolitics of Energy and Latin American Public Policy.

Mr. Coronel was Founder and president, 1994-2000, of Pro Calidad de Vida, an NGO organization promoting anti-corruption techniques in government and civic education for children in Venezuela, Panama, Paraguay, Mexico and Nicaragua; during those years he was the Venezuelan representative of Transparency International.

Coronel has degrees from the University of Tulsa, the Universidad Central de Venezuela, and Johns Hopkins University, and he was a fellow of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard. He is a member of the TU Engineering Hall of Fame and was a Distinguished Alumnus and a Trustee of TU.

Gustavo Coronel’s many publications include a book on the nationalization of the Venezuelan oil industry and articles on corruption in his native country. He has spoken to 15 of the ACFR committees (including the Tulsa committee in 2007).