An egg and 93.3 million liters of gasoline cost the same in Venezuela

An egg costs the same as 93.3 million liters of gasoline and with a dollar it is possible to buy the contents of 14,600 tankers: in the former oil power Venezuela, hyperinflation and the freezing of prices make the fuel virtually leave for free .

The paradox is that, with the world's cheapest gasoline, Venezuelans face cycles of shortages, the last of which started last week, with queues coming to several days waiting to fill the tank in several regions.

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

An egg in the supermarket costs 933 bolívares, but in the station, a liter of gasoline costs 0.00001 bolívares.

To fill a tank of 50 liters costs 0.0005, amount impossible to pay in exact form: of lesser note is the one of two bolivars, after a monetary reconversion launched by the president Nicolas Maduro last August.

At the time, five zeros of the bolivar were cut, but the new notes were pulverized by a hyperinflation that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects in 10.000.000% for this year. Coins no longer exist.

"The little money you give to the person who supplies your car at the station is tipped", because the fuel is virtually free, Henkel García, director of the Econometric firm, told AFPTV.

A dollar, priced at 5,641.50 bolivares on Thursday by the Central Bank of Venezuela, buys 554.6 million liters of gasoline, enough to fill 222 Olympic pools.

"How did it get so cheap? With rising inflation and a stagnant gasoline price," Garcia explained.

- Increase is 'taboo'

Maduro's 2018 readjustment plan included increasing gasoline, and even equating it with prices on the international market for people without the "Carnet de la Patria", a document that gives access to subsidies and which the opposition considers a mechanism of control Social.

The high never materialized in the country with the largest oil reserves, whose production reached its worst levels in three decades.

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

For Maduro, the situation is the result of an "economic war" of the opposition and the United States to overthrow it; for their critics, are the product of years of misguided chavismo policies.

The "increased gasoline was a taboo." Much of the political world believes that raising gasoline can raise social pressure, and this can lead to political change, "Garcia summarized.

In 1989, after a price adjustment began a social conflict known as "Caracazo", which left 300 dead in Caracas and neighboring towns. This is a ghost that shakes whenever a gasoline price increase is mentioned.

- Poor subsidizing rich -

For a liter of gasoline to be sold in Venezuela at an international price would have to reach 4,659 bolivars per liter, Casique explained.

The huge difference between that amount and what Venezuelans actually pay costs the state about $ 5.24 billion a year, according to experts.

"Giving gas as a gift ... is a very regressive subsidy, because whoever owns a car is the richest social group. It is a subsidy that those who do not have a car pay for those who have a car, and this is very damaging. "said Garcia.

The shortages of Venezuelans - including blackouts and shortages of commodities such as medicines - add up to the lack of fuel.

Currently, Venezuela refines only 100,000 barrels of gasoline daily, half of the demand, being forced to import the rest, said the opposition deputy José Guerra.

But in a context of dollar drought from the crisis, "we can not afford these 100,000 barrels," added Guerra, a former director of the Central Bank.

The entry into force at the end of April of an oil embargo of the United States also makes it difficult to buy gasoline from US companies "which were the ones that normally supplied us," García says.