So the collapse in world oil prices doesn't have anything to do with it? Right. Got it. Those 19K barrels of crude sold to the USA are now worth about 1/2 what they were worth in 2013. After July 2014 oil prices plummeted from over $100/barrel to as low as $29/barrel in January of 2016, It's now slightly under $50/barrel. Can't you see how this would cripple an economy funded solely by crude sales? 

As far as "nationalizing" goes it's not theft if the wealth that created the industry came from raw materials owned by the nation, then "nationalizing" the industry is not theft.

Theft was what the oil companies were doing when they sent the profits out of the country. See, "neo-colonialism". Chavez called his movement, the "Bolivarian Revolution" because, as did Bolivar in the 19th century,  it threw off the hold European companies had over Venezuela's natural resources and economy.