Venezuela Is Leaking Oil Everywhere and Making Dangerous Mess

From a distance, the scene is beautiful, a dark pool shimmering under the midday sun, reflecting billowing clouds. But when you close in on the dirt-packed trail leading toward a trio of storage tanks, a pungent odor makes it clear. It’s not pretty; it’s an oil spill.

Rusty tanks float on an oil spill in the Orinoco Belt, near El Tigre in Anzoategui state on Oct. 12, 2018.

Photographer: Bloomberg

In this one spot in the Orinoco Belt, a region in Venezuela named for the river that flows above the world’s largest deposits of crude, so many barrels have escaped from underground pipes that a 2,150-square-foot pit around the tanks is filled to the brim. The country is pockmarked with these messes, ...