On Sunday evening, a sudden explosion rocked an oil drilling rig operated by Venezuela’s state-owned petroleum giant Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) in the country’s southwestern Apure state, leaving a minimum of eight workers with injuries, multiple anonymous sources confirmed on Monday. \n\nAccording to the sources, corroborated by user-shared videos circulating across multiple social media platforms, all injured personnel have been moved across the border into neighboring Colombia to receive urgent specialized medical care. As of Monday afternoon, PDVSA has not responded to repeated requests for media comment to confirm the incident details, clarify the cause of the blast, or share additional context on the workers’ current conditions. \n\nThe incident marks another disruption to PDVSA’s operational activities in Venezuela’s key oil-producing regions, coming as the state firm continues to grapple with long-standing infrastructure challenges and maintenance backlogs across its assets.