The assumption is that once we electrify cars and build more renewables, oil more or less fades into irrelevance. The country sits atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves and was once among Latin America’s wealthiest nations. But decades of mismanagement, corruption and external pressure left its oil industry in collapse — and because oil accounted for nearly all export revenue, the economy collapsed with it. When oil is framed as a moral failure, the problem is treated as one of intent rather than capacity. Treating oil use as a moral shortcoming obscures the fact that, in many cases, there is still no functional substitute.