The Orinoco Belt's crude reserves face serious questions about viability. What most don't realize: the oil here is dense, viscous stuff—expensive to refine and demanding energy-intensive extraction processes. Industry experts are skeptical that output will spike significantly in the near term. The processing costs eat into margins, and that's before accounting for infrastructure constraints. For those tracking macro factors affecting global energy markets and commodity cycles, this matters—energy inflation ripples through economies and ultimately influences broader asset class performance.