Venezuela's oil industry plagued by piracy and holdups

Maracaibo, Venezuela

WHEN night falls over western Venezuela, armed gangs known as "pirates" sometimes ride boats into muggy Lake Maracaibo to steal equipment from oil wells. In the country's Paraguana peninsula, slum dwellers at times break through a perimeter wall into Venezuela's biggest refinery and rob machinery, construction tools, and cables to sell as scrap.

On the other side of the Opec country in Monagas state, around 26,000 potential barrels were lost in March during a shutdown after state oil company employees and contractors stole copper cables and caused a tank to overflow.

Venezuela's national crime pandemic - the United Nations says that the country has the world's second-highest murder rate after Honduras -…