‘Very happy, very hopeful’: Venezuelans in Edmonton celebrate Maduro’s capture

While many Venezuelans in Edmonton are celebrating the removal of Nicolas Maduro, others are wondering how it will impact Alberta's oil market.

Venezuelans in Edmonton celebrated the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro over the weekend.

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“That was something that we have been expecting for so long,” Jorge Robles said of seeing the footage of a handcuffed Maduro. “We couldn’t believe it, it is so good to be true.”

At first, the situation was concerning for Jonny Alvarez’ family, who live close to the capital, Caracas, where Maduro was captured.

“But then, yesterday morning, when everybody knew about the situation, very happy, very hopeful,” Alvarez told CTV News Edmonton.

He, Robles and others in Edmonton’s Venezuelan community gathered Sunday at Avila Arepa, as they said many in their home country were also celebrating.

To those in Edmonton, Maduro’s capture increases the likelihood of returning to Venezuela.

“If when finally the democratic government comes into power and the PDVSA (state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A.) needs our help to rebuild the industry, we are willing to help,” Robles, who is an oil and gas engineering consultant, said.

“I think that I am not alone when we dream of the opportunity to pay back to Venezuela and help them rebuild the country.”

Rolando Sandrea, Avila Arepa’s owner, echoed this. The man who was originally a chemical engineer said he fled to Canada because he was blacklisted from working in any oil-related business in Venezuela.

“If this opportunity arrives, I would like to go back and reconstruct my country with the knowledge that I got.”

While Maduro’s ally settles in as the interim president, U.S. President Donald Trump has said his country will “run” Venezuela.

The Venezuelans in Edmonton mostly are grateful he stepped in.

“This is like a family where the stepfather was kicking the family, the siblings and everybody every day and the neighbours were hearing the screams and doing nothing. Then somebody came and stomped on the door, broke the door, and took the aggressor away,” Robles said.

“Now, we have to worry about the door. But the first reaction is that the family is happy because finally, somebody did something about it. Now we have to make sure there is no new stepfather.”

‘Light at the end of the tunnel’

Both those from Venezuela and experts watching the geopolitical developments see oil as the key to the country’s recovery.

The U.S. is continuing to enforce an “oil quarantine” for now and it is estimated Venezuela needs between $50 billion and $100 billion needed to revitalize its oil industry to compete on the international stage, according to oil market researcher Rory Johnston.

The president of the Venezuelans in Edmonton Association acknowledged his home country needs the help.

“We’re going to need lots of money, lots of investment, and lots of help to … ensure that we can keep up. We’re going to need them. So if we understand what (Trump’s) saying, it’s a little bit more than that,” Samuel Romero told CTV News Edmonton.

“My recommendation, mostly for Venezuelans, is that we have to keep united more than ever…. We have to be careful in rushing things. I am absolutely sure that we’ll see the light at the end of the tunnel and we’ll go back into a great country again.”

Impacts on Canadian oil

How Canadian oil will be affected is dependent on how quickly the country stabilizes, Johnston told CTV News Edmonton.

“Given that that (U.S.) blockade was initially framed as a way of building pressure against Maduro, there’s a question whether or not it is going to remain in place, given that Maduro is now in custody. The current line is that the blockade will remain in place in order to essentially create leverage with the new government, to get them to do what the Trump administration wants and satisfy ‘demands.’ But these demands are still as such, not really listed explicitly,” Johnston said during an interview on Sunday.

He anticipates Trump will loosen the oil tanker blockade, which will increase supply to the market, in turn causing a fall in prices.

At that point, Johnston said most barrels from Venezuela will continue going to China, at least until the U.S. eases the sanctions it has also implemented, which would divert more to the U.S.

“If those barrels are going to the U.S. Gulf Coast, that will begin to compete more directly, and that’ll put pressure on what we call the differential, or the discount for Canadian barrels in around Houston, around the Gulf Coast,” he said.

“Now that’s only a small fraction of the market for Canadian oil in the United States, the vast majority of which is actually consumed in the Midwest, not in the Gulf Coast. And it’s going to be far more difficult, if not functionally impossible, in the near term, for Venezuelan barrels to compete in the Midwest, because the pipelines only go south.”

This, Johnston said, adds to the importance of Alberta and Ottawa finding a path to building a pipeline to the west coast.

“That is still functionally the only real way that Canada can increase its resilience to these types of threats and these types of shocks.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Miriam Valdes-Carletti