Lake Maracaibo is, in many ways, the unlikeliest of homes for a burgeoning shrimp farm industry. After a century of relentless oil drilling, much of it carried out in a reckless and haphazard manner in the final years, its surface is stained by petroleum slicks and choked with rusted-out rigs that stretch high into the sky.
And yet, it is fitting that it is here, in the shadow of the lake that produced hundreds of billions of dollars for government coffers and once made Venezuela one of the richest nations on Earth, that a picture of the country’s post-oil economy is beginning to take shape.
Shrimp farms, big and small, are popping up all over, turning the low-lying, flood-prone lands that make up the Maracaibo basin into a latticework of massive pools that grow the dark-orange shrimp preferred by diners in many parts of Europe and Asia.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-01-24/in-the-shadow-of-an-oil-slicked-lake-venezuela-is-exporting-shrimp-to-world