Talk about Venezuelan oil reminds of a famous anecdote we have in Hungarian about predictions that everyone knows won’t happen, but for /typically/ political reasons leaders and subordinates pretend they totally will.

It relates to the construction of the country’s first large steel mill, its handover set at an unreasonable date in the 1950s, when at the construction site, (basically still a wild field) a reporter was interviewing the head engineer and insisted the point, is the mill REALLY going to be finished by the set date? The engineer kept saying, dear comrade reporter, indeed the smelters will have steel flowing from them soon.

Finally, the engineer relents, after snooping out the reporter is someone he can safely admit the truth:

Then I’ll tell you, Mr. reporter Sir: Horse cock will flow here, not steel.