When was oil discovered in Venezuela?
Maracaibo Basin
Oil was discovered in producible quantities in Venezuela in 1914 at the town of Mene Grande in the east central part of the Maracaibo basin near a surface oil seep.
History of the Venezuelan oil industry
All the new companies are owned by a holding company-Petroven or PDV- and which in turn is owned by the State. Ultimately not much had changed in this regard, as all Venezuelans with leading positions in the MNCs took over the leading positions of the respective new companies, and therefore still securing their interests in Venezuela's oil. PDVSA controls activity involving oil and natural gas in Venezuela. In 1980, in an aggressive internationalization plan, PDVSA bought refineries in USA and Europe as the American Citgo that catapulted it to the third-largest oil company in the world.
History of Venezuela
Archaeologists have discovered evidence of the earliest known inhabitants of the Venezuelan area in the form of leaf-shaped flake tools, together with chopping and plano-convex scraping implements exposed on the high riverine terraces of the Pedregal River in western Venezuela. Late Pleistocene hunting artifacts, including spear tips, come from a similar site in northwestern Venezuela known as "El Jobo". According to radiocarbon dating, these date from 15,000 to 9,000 B.P. Taima-Taima, yellow Muaco, and El Jobo in Falcón are some of the sites that have yielded archeological material from these times. These groups co-existed with megafauna like megateriums, glyptodonts, and toxodonts. Archaeologists identify a Meso-Indian period from 9,000–7,000 B.P. to 1000 B.P. In this period, hunters and gatherers of megafauna started to turn to other food sources and established the first tribal structures.
Pre-Columbian Venezuela had an estimated population of one million. In addition to indigenous peoples known today, the population included historic groups such as the Kalina (Caribs), Auaké, Caquetio, Mariche, and Timoto-Cuicas. The Timoto-Cuica culture was the most complex society in Pre-Columbian Venezuela; with pre-planned permanent villages, surrounded by irrigated, terraced fields. They also stored water in tanks. Their houses were made primarily of stone and wood with thatched roofs. They were peaceful, for the most part, and depended on growing crops. Regional crops included potatoes and ullucos. They left behind works of art, particularly anthropomorphic ceramics, but no major monuments. They spun vegetable fibers to weave into textiles and mats for housing. They are credited with having invented the arepa, a staple of Venezuelan cuisine.
Ventura Oil Field
In the Ventura field, the large-scale structural feature responsible for petroleum accumulation is the Ventura Anticline, an east-west trending geologic structure long, visible in the numerous rock outcrops in the rugged topography of the area. This anticline dips steeply on both sides, with the dip angle ranging from 30 to 60 degrees, resulting in a series of rock beds resembling a long house with a gabled roof, under which oil and gas collect in abundance. Within this feature, the primary petroleum-bearing unit is the Pico Formation, a sedimentary unit of turbidite sands of high porosity (16 to 20 percent)). Additionally, oil is found in the underlying Santa Margarita Formation. Eight different oil-bearing zones have been identified by number, 1st through 8th based on depth, with the 2nd zone the first to be discovered, in March 1919 by the Shell Oil Company. The pools range in depth from to over , although depth within each pool varies greatly; the discovery well into the 2nd zone, which has an average depth of , had a total depth of only .
Lago Petroleum Corporation
Edward L. Doheny, who owned the Pan American Petroleum and Transport Co., controlled the Barco concession in Colombia through a subsidiary. He became interested in Venezuelan oil operations, including a pipeline from Colombia to Venezuela to reduce the cost of exporting the Colombian oil. After meetings between J.A. Coronil and Doheney's staff, the Lago Petroleum Co. was formed by Preston McGoodwin, Joshua S. Cosden and Payne Whitney Associates, and registered in Delaware on 12 April 1923. 
British-Mexican Petroleum acquired about 25% of its stock.
In 1924 the company took over concessions that had been granted to the British Equatorial Oil Company in addition to properties it had purchased from twenty Venezuelans who had obtained them from General Juan Vicente Gómez, the military ruler of the country.
Petroleum politics
Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1975–1976, creating Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PdVSA), the country's state-run oil and natural gas company. Along with being Venezuela's largest employer, PdVSA accounts for about one-third of the country’s GDP, 50 percent of the government’s revenue and 80 percent of Venezuela’s exports earnings. In recent years, under the influence of President Chavez, the Venezuelan government has reduced PdVSA’s previous autonomy and amended the rules regulating the country’s hydrocarbons sector.
Colonial Venezuela
Spanish expeditions led by Columbus and Pepito Perez reached the coast of present-day Venezuela in 1498 and 1499. The first colonial exploitation was of the pearl oysters of the "Pearl Islands". Spain established its first permanent South American settlement in the present-day city of Cumaná in 1522, and in 1577 Caracas became the capital of the Province of Venezuela. There was also for a few years a German colony at Klein-Venedig.
Science and technology in Venezuela
Gustavo Inciarte Perich (1938, Maracaibo, Venezuela – 2010, Norman, Oklahoma). Graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Oklahoma in 1957 and later revalidated his title at the Universidad del Zulia. Inciarte was the first Venezuelan to become Chief Petroleum Engineer for any of SHELL's Group of Companies Worldwide, and after many years of a very successful career in PDVSA was named the first President of INTEVEP (Venezuela's Technology Research and Development Center). In 1998 he was the first Latin American elected as President of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). In 1998 ended his 41-year career in the oil industry as a member of PDVSA board which was, at the time, one of the biggest oil companies in the world. Since 2003 he was a Visiting Research Scholar at the University of Oklahoma, in the Sarkeys Energy Center, and worked mainly with the Energy Institute of the Americas.
Oil refinery
In North America, the first oil well was drilled in 1858 by James Miller Williams in Oil Springs, Ontario, Canada. In the United States, the petroleum industry began in 1859 when Edwin Drake found oil near Titusville, Pennsylvania. The industry grew slowly in the 1800s, primarily producing kerosene for oil lamps. In the early twentieth century, the introduction of the internal combustion engine and its use in automobiles created a market for gasoline that was the impetus for fairly rapid growth of the petroleum industry. The early finds of petroleum like those in Ontario and Pennsylvania were soon outstripped by large oil "booms" in Oklahoma, Texas and California.
Chevron Corporation
One of Chevron's early predecessors, Star Oil, discovered oil at the Pico Canyon Oilfield in the Santa Susana Mountains north of Los Angeles in 1876. The 25 barrels of oil per day well marked the discovery of the Newhall Field, and is considered by geophysicist Marius Vassiliou as the beginning of the modern oil industry in California. Energy analyst Antonia Juhasz has said that while Star Oil's founders were influential in establishing an oil industry in California, Union Mattole Company discovered oil in the state eleven years prior.
History of Venezuela (1999–present)
The 1970s were boom years for oil, during which the material standard of living for all classes in Venezuela improved. This was partly due to the ruling AD and COPEI parties' investing in social welfare projects which, because of the government's oil income, they could do without heavily taxing private wealth. "Venezuelan workers enjoyed the highest wages in Latin America and subsidies in food, health, education and transport." However, "toward the end of the 1970s, these tendencies began to reverse themselves." Per capita oil income and per capita income both declined, leading to a foreign debt crisis and forced devaluation of the bolivar in 1983. The negative trend continued through the 1990s. "Per capita income in 1997 was 8 percent less than in 1970; workers' income during this period was reduced by approximately half." "Between 1984 and 1995 the percentage of people living below the poverty line jumped from 36 percent to 66 percent, while the number of people suffering from extreme poverty tripled, from 11 percent to 36 percent."
Venezuela
By late-2016 and into 2017, Venezuelans had to search for food on a daily basis, occasionally resorting to eating wild fruit or garbage, wait in lines for hours and sometimes settle without having certain products. By early 2017, priests began telling Venezuelans to label their garbage so needy individuals could feed on their refuse. In March 2017, Venezuela, with the largest oil reserves in the world, began having shortages of gasoline in some regions with reports that fuel imports had begun.
India–Venezuela relations
During President Chávez's visit to India in March 2005, the two countries signed a bilateral agreement on co-operation in the hydrocarbon sector and an MoU granting ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) rights for oil and gas exploration in Venezuela. OVL subsequently opened an office in Venezuela. In April 2008, OVL and PDVSA established a joint venture called Petrolera IndoVenezolana SA for exploration and production oil in the San Cristóbal field. OVL has a 40% stake in the company and the remaining 60% is held by PDVSA. OVL helped certify heavy oil reserves in the Orinoco river belt in 2010.
San Tomé, Venezuela
The area was known as the "Orinoco Heavy Oil Belt" and which was also named "Venezuela's Black ace-in-the hole". The concessions for the Gulf Oil Company were obtained by Addison M. Mcay of the Sun Oil Company. Gene Brossard founded the town. Gustavo A San Roan was the contractor who built it. Henri Pittier, from Switzerland, a botanist, an engineer and also a teacher was responsible for bringing in trees and planting them in the town.
The Mene Grande Oil Company was the subsidiary of Gulf Oil Corporation and had their main camp here. Hollis Dow Hedberg, the well known geologist and petroleum scientist, served as the Chief Geologist of Gulf Oil Company. As the industrial site is located within barbed wire fencing, which created a constricted atmosphere, the camp residents nicknamed the camp "Santomaniacs". On 18 September 2006 an oil drill was inaugurated in San Tome by Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejadto.
History of the Venezuelan oil industry
It was the blowout of the well in Cabimas in 1922 that marked the beginning of Venezuela's modern history as a major producer. This discovery captured the attention of the nation and the world. Soon dozens of foreign companies acquired vast tracts of territory in the hope of striking it rich, and by 1928 Venezuela became the world's leading oil exporter. Oil ended Venezuela's relative anonymity in the eyes of world powers, making it a linchpin of an ever-expanding international oil industry and a new consideration in global policymaking. Venezuela's oil production became a major factor in policy making in Washington before the Second World War.
Venezuela
The territory now known as Venezuela was colonized by Spain in 1522 amid resistance from indigenous peoples. In 1811, it became one of the first Spanish-American territories to declare independence, which was not securely established until 1821, when Venezuela was a department of the federal republic of Gran Colombia. It gained full independence as a country in 1830. During the 19th century, Venezuela suffered political turmoil and autocracy, remaining dominated by regional "caudillos" (military strongmen) until the mid-20th century. Since 1958, the country has had a series of democratic governments. Economic shocks in the 1980s and 1990s led to several political crises, including the deadly Caracazo riots of 1989, two attempted coups in 1992, and the impeachment of President Carlos Andrés Pérez for embezzlement of public funds in 1993. A collapse in confidence in the existing parties saw the 1998 election of former coup-involved career officer Hugo Chávez and the launch of the Bolivarian Revolution. The revolution began with a 1999 Constituent Assembly, where a new Constitution of Venezuela was written. This new constitution officially changed the name of the country to "Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela" ().
Cabimas
Cabimas was founded by a group of Cistercians monks in 1758 as the Mission of Saint Ambrosio of Punta de Piedra, located in the modern day "La Mision". Some archeological remains have been found, however not a single wall survives. The existence of Cabimas is stated in the chronicles of Venezuelan Archbishop Mariano Marti who visited the town in 1771. The town grew as a fishing village on Lake Maracaibo's coast until the discovery of oil by the Venezuelan Oil Concessions (VOC) with the well Santa Barbara (R2) in 1917. However, it was the well "Los Barrosos 2" (R4) (1922) which 100,000 bpd blow out reached the world newspaper's headlines. Many oil companies and workers from other parts of Venezuela and abroad came to Cabimas, increasing its population. Most foreign personnel were of American or Dutch origin. La Rosa Oilfield was given in concession by Venezuela president Juan Vicente Gómez.
History of the Venezuelan oil industry
At the time of Chávez's election, OPEC had lost much of its influence compared to when it was first created. A combination of OPEC members, including Venezuela, regularly ignoring quotas and non-OPEC countries such as Mexico and Russia beginning to expand on their own petroleum industries resulted in record low oil prices which hurt the Venezuelan economy. One of Chávez's main goals as president was to combat this problem by re-strengthening OPEC and getting countries to once again abide by their quotas. Chávez personally visited many of the leaders of oil producing nations around the world, and in 2000, he hosted the first summit of the heads-of-state of OPEC in 25 years (the second ever). Goals of this meeting, held in Caracas, included recuperating the credibility of Venezuela in OPEC, defending oil prices, cementing relations between Venezuela and the Arab/Islamic world, and to strengthen OPEC in general.
History of the Venezuelan oil industry
By the mid-1950s, however, Middle Eastern countries had started contributing significant amounts of oil to the international petroleum market, and the United States had implemented oil import quotas. The world experienced an over-supply of oil, and prices plummeted.
Italo-Venezuelans
Before the discovery of huge deposits of oil in Venezuela, during the first half of the 20th century, the emigration of Italians to Venezuela was limited. A number of Italians (among them Agostino Codazzi) moved to Venezuela from Italy during the colonial times and the Simón Bolívar era. In the second half of the XIX century there was a small number of Italians and their descendants, who were able to reach important levels inside the Venezuelan society, like Luis Razetti.
Borburata
Borburata is a small coastal town in Carabobo state, Venezuela, located on the Caribbean Sea. It was long a destination of indigenous peoples, who would gather salt at the sea. It was colonized by the Spanish in the 16th century, but suffered so many raids that it was mostly abandoned. Residents moved inland. Today it has facilities associated with the Venezuela oil and gas industry.
California, West Virginia
California is notable as a point where shallow deposits of petroleum naturally percolated to the earth's surface, a phenomenon common in the area, which spurred settlement at nearby Petroleum in Ritchie County, and Burning Springs, about fifteen miles south of California in Wirt County. Oil from the California area was being collected and used as a commercial lubricant as early as the 1820s. The first oil well at California was sunk in 1859 by Charles Shattuck and T. T. Jones, at about the same time as the well sunk by Edwin Drake near Titusville, Pennsylvania, often referred to as the first commercial oil well. This has led to some dispute as to which well was the earlier; Drake began drilling some months earlier, but did not discover oil until August 28.
Pre-Columbian period in Venezuela
The Pre-Columbian period in Venezuela refers to the period before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 16th century, known as the Pre-Columbian era. It covers the history of what are now known as the indigenous peoples of Venezuela.
Colonial Venezuela
Christopher Columbus sailed along the eastern coast of Venezuela on his third voyage in 1498, the only one of his four voyages to reach the South American mainland. This expedition discovered the so-called "Pearl Islands" of Cubagua and Margarita off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. Later Spanish expeditions returned to exploit these islands' once abundant pearl oysters, enslaving the indigenous people of the islands and harvesting the pearls so intensively that they became one of the most valuable resources of the incipient Spanish Empire in the Americas between 1508 and 1531, by which time both the local indigenous population and the pearl oysters had become devastated.
Mining in Venezuela
With of proven oil reserves in 2004, Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in South America and the sixth largest in the world—more than Canada, Mexico, and the United States combined. Venezuela’s 2002 production of (bbl/d) of crude was a drop of 8.3 percent over 2001 and the country’s lowest production figure since 1994. In 2003, a year in which production was halted for a couple of months by a general strike and further disrupted by the firing of nearly half of the state oil company’s work force, Venezuela's total oil production was an estimated . In 2004 oil production totaled about , according to the government’s estimate. Prior to President Chávez's December 1998 election, Venezuela regularly exceeded its Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)-agreed oil production targets. Hugo Chávez maintained a policy of strict adherence to OPEC quotas and played a leading role in shifting OPEC from a volume-oriented strategy to one of controlling prices. With planned investments of US$26 billion in oil and natural gas exploration and production between 2004 and 2009, Venezuelan Petroleum expects oil production to reach by 2009.
Petrocaribe
Petrocaribe is an oil alliance of many Caribbean states with Venezuela to purchase oil on conditions of preferential payment. The alliance was launched on 29 June 2005 in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela. In 2013 Petrocaribe agreed links with the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), to go beyond oil and promote economic cooperation.
Energy in Venezuela
The largest oil company is Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).
History of the Venezuelan oil industry
Since 2014, oil production in Venezuela has suffered from a poor oil market and Venezuela’s insufficient funding of the industry. Venezuela’s nationalistic oil policies have not succeeded in making them more independent from their oil customers. In 2016, the United States imported 291,461,000 barrels of oils from Venezuela, an amount consistent with imports in the five years prior. To assuage the oil price decline which began back in June 2014 and continues through to today, President Maduro printed more currency, resulting in inflation as high as 700% of what the inflation rate was in 2014.. The Economic policy of the Nicolás Maduro administration did not revive the oil decline, and by 2016, the oil production reached the lowest it had been in 23 years. According to analysts, the economic crisis suffered under President Nicolás Maduro would have still occurred with or without Chávez.
Pico Canyon Oilfield
According to a later account, Peria gathered some of the oil in his canteen and brought it to others who recognized its value. Yet another account indicates that Perea brought a small amount of the curious substance to the Mission San Fernando, where a Dr. Gelsich recognized it as petroleum and at once formed a company to stake out claims. Perea was granted an ownership interest in an oil company for making the discovery, but he reportedly traded his interest in the company for a barrel of spirits and a $20 gold piece. After the discovery, claims were staked out, but it was not until almost five years later that the first well was struck and later still before the first commercial success.
History of Venezuela (1908–1958)
It did not take much geological expertise to know that Venezuela had large petroleum deposits, because the petroleum oozed out from seeps all over the country and an asphalt lake had formed naturally. Venezuelans themselves had tried to extract oil for a small hand-pumped refinery early in the 20th century. When word spread internationally of Venezuela's oil potential, representatives of large foreign companies came to the country and started lobbying for rights of exploration and exploitation, and Gómez established the concessionary system. Venezuela had inherited from Spain the law that the ground surface—presumably, as deep as a plow or a water well went—could belong to individuals but everything under the soil was state property. Thus, Gómez began to grant huge concessions to family and friends. Any one who was close to Gómez eventually would become rich in one way or another. Gómez himself accumulated immense expanses of grasslands for cattle-raising, which had been his original occupation and was a lifelong passion. The Venezuelan concessionaires leased or sold their holdings to the highest foreign bidders. Gómez, who didn’t trust industrial workers or unions, refused to allow the oil companies to build refineries on Venezuelan soil, so these were built them in the Dutch islands of Aruba and Curaçao. The one in Aruba was for a time the second largest in the world, after the one in Abadan, Iran. Although the Venezuelan oil boom started around 1918, the year when oil first figured as an export commodity, it took off when an oil well called Barroso blew a spout that threw up an average of the equivalent to 100,000 barrels a day. It took five days to bring the flow under control. By 1927, oil was Venezuela's most valuable export and by 1929 Venezuela exported more oil than any other country in the world.
Barco oil concession
Colonel Virgilio Barco was granted the concession on 16 October 1905 in the Catatumbo region of the Norte de Santander department.
Colonel Barco had led victorious forces in the recent Thousand Days civil war, and was given the concession in return. 
He planned to use it for cattle, until he found that oil was seeping out of the ground.
World War I caused delays in developing the field. 
In 1918 Barco sold the concession to the Carib Syndicate, a concern owned by Americans, who sold 75% of their interest to the Colombian Petroleum Company the next year.
This was a subsidiary of Edward L. Doheny's Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company. 
Doheny was also interested in plans to develop the oil industry in Venezuela, 
and in building a pipeline from Colombia to Venezuela to make it more economical to export the Barco oil.
Crisis in Venezuela
Corruption in Venezuela is high according to Transparency International's (TNI) Corruptions Perceptions Index and is prevalent throughout many levels of Venezuela's society. In the case of Venezuela, the discovery of oil in the early twentieth century has worsened political corruption. While corruption is difficult to measure reliably, Transparency International currently ranks Venezuela among the top 20 most corrupt countries, tied with four other countries as the 8th most corrupt nation in the world. A 2014 Gallup poll found that 75% of Venezuelans believed that corruption was widespread throughout the Venezuelan government. Discontent with corruption was cited by opposition-aligned groups as one of the reasons for the 2014 Venezuelan protests.
Venezuela used to be a wealthy nation of Latin America, but a corrupt system along with drop in oil prices drove the country into political and economic crisis.
Energy policy of Venezuela
Venezuela has pushed the creation of regional oil initiatives for the Caribbean (Petrocaribe), the Andean region (Petroandino), and South America (Petrosur), and Latin America (Petroamerica). The initiatives include assistance for oil developments, investments in refining capacity, and preferential oil pricing. The most developed of these three is the Petrocaribe initiative, with 13 nations signed agreement in 2005. Under Petrocaribe, Venezuela will offer crude oil and petroleum products to Caribbean nations under preferential terms and prices. The payment system allows for a few nations to buy oil on market value but only a certain amount is needed up front; the remainder can be paid through a 25-year financing agreement on 1% interest. The deal allows for the Caribbean nations to purchase up to of oil per day on these terms. In addition it allows for nations to pay part of the cost with other products provided to Venezuela, such as bananas, rice, and sugar.
Chronic inflation
Venezuela has a legacy of multiple inflation crisis linked to mismanagement and lack of economic diversification, with the largest and longest period starting in 1980s and through the 90s during which inflation peaked in 1996 with 60% in January to an all-time high of 118.8% in July of that same year. Revenue from petroleum exports accounts for more than 50% of the country's GDP and roughly 95% of total exports, and after decades of some of the strongest economic growth in South America the trend went into sharp reversal as oil prices began their steady drop following the end of the oil crisis of the 1970s of which both OPEC member and non member producers had benefited greatly from. This period of economic contraction in Venezuela coincided with the beginning of the 1980s oil glut, which saw large cutbacks in production and state revenue. Since the early 2000s the administration of Hugo Chavez responded to the ongoing crisis by initiating a series of often flawed price controls, state acquisition and reappropriation of both public and private assets and funds, and a revaluation of the bolivar in 2008 which slashed three zeroes off the currency. However, changes in economic reliance on petroleum and mining exports were never made and Venezuela remained vulnerable to global supply and demand of these exports and continued to experience systemic economic problems and a return to high inflation. As of January 2014, Venezuela had the highest inflation rate in the world at 56.2% and 63.4% as of August 2014, though official numbers are stated to be much lower. The national economy has contracted for three consecutive quarters officially putting the country in recession while a global crash in oil prices crimp revenue and contribute to fears of a potential default which could bring inflation levels even higher.
History of Venezuela (1999–present)
Hugo Chávez's political activity began in the 1980s and 1990s, a period of economic downturn and social upheaval in Venezuela. Venezuela's economic well-being fluctuated with the unstable demand for its primary export commodity, oil. Oil accounts for three-quarters of Venezuela's exports, half of its government's fiscal income, and a quarter of the nation's GDP.
History of the Venezuelan oil industry
During the mid-1980s, Venezuela's oil production steadily began to rise. By the 1990s, symptoms of the Dutch Disease were once again becoming apparent. Between 1990-99, Venezuela's industrial production declined from 50 percent to 24 percent of the country's gross domestic product compared to a decrease of 36 percent to 29 percent for the rest of Latin America, but production levels continued to rise until 1998.
Aroa, Venezuela
Mining began in 1632, following gold veins, which led to discovery of large deposits of copper.
Around the end of the 17th century the "Cobre Caracas" mining company became the property of the family of Simón Bolívar (1783–1830).
The largest of the mines, La Vizcaina, was worked by 60 to 70 slaves.
In 1824 Bolivar leased the mines to British entrepreneurs.
The British employed about 1,200 workers in the mines, including British and Venezuelans.
They used the Aroa River to carry the ore by barge to the coast, where it was loaded onto ships.
De Loys' Ape
François de Loys, a Swiss oil geologist, led an expedition from 1917 to 1920 to search for petroleum in an area along the border between Colombia and Venezuela, primarily near Lake Maracaibo. The expedition was unsuccessful, and furthermore suffered greatly due to disease and skirmishes with natives; of the 20 members of de Loys' group, only four survived.
Science and technology in Venezuela
The Institute of Venezuelan Petroleum Technology () is the research arm of Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA). Intevep develops projects in the areas of oil exploration, production and refining. In 1976, the construction project for the facilities and laboratories of INTEVEP was started, located in what until that year had been a Jesuit seminary, called Villa Pignatelli, chosen for meeting the ideal conditions of geographical location. In June 1979, INTEVEP was incorporated as a trading company, a subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela. Currently, it is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Social District for the Altos Mirandinos and has the coordination of the Ribas Mision.
Agriculture in Venezuela
Agriculture in Venezuela has a much smaller share of the economy than in any other Latin American country. After the discovery of oil in Venezuela in the early 20th century to the 1940s, agriculture has declined rapidly, and with the beginning of large-scale industrial development in the 1940s, agriculture and land reform was largely neglected by successive governments (although a 1960 land reform law did see 200,000 families receive land, largely in the early 1960s). Since 1999, under the Bolivarian Revolution of President Hugo Chávez, agriculture has had a somewhat higher priority. Agriculture in Venezuela accounts for approximately 3% of GDP, 10% of the labor force, and at least a quarter of Venezuela's land area.
PDVSA
Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA, ) (English: Petroleum of Venezuela) is the Venezuelan state-owned oil and natural gas company. It has activities in exploration, production, refining and exporting oil as well as exploration and production of natural gas. Since its founding on 1 January 1976 with the nationalization of the Venezuelan oil industry, PDVSA has dominated the oil industry of Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter.
1950s in Angola
The Portuguese discovered petroleum in Angola in 1955. Production began in the Cuanza basin in the 1950s, in the Congo basin in the 1960s, and in the exclave of Cabinda in 1968. The Belgian company Fina (today - 2007—a part of Total) was the first to be given a concession. The Portuguese colonial government granted operating rights for Block Zero to the Cabinda Gulf Oil Company (CABGOC), a subsidiary of the U.S. company Gulf Oil, now merged into ChevronTexaco, in 1955. The rate of Angola's economic expansion grew in the 1950s, but boomed in the 1960s as industries grew by an annual average rate of 17%. Today the petroleum industry is the engine of the Angolan economy.
History of the Venezuelan oil industry
In the early 1970s, oil producing countries of the Persian Gulf began negotiations with oil companies in attempt to increase their ownership participation. In 1972 they rapidly obtained a 25 percent participation, and less than a year later they revised those agreements to obtain up to 60 percent participation in the ownership of the companies. By 1973, OPEC Persian Gulf states members decided to raise their prices by 70 percent and to place an embargo on countries friendly to Israel (the United States and the Netherlands). This event became known as the 1973 oil crisis. Following a culmination of conflicts in the Middle East and the oil producing countries of the Persian Gulf no longer exporting to the United States and oil prices rising steeply, Venezuela experienced a significant increase in oil production profits. Between 1972 and 1974, the Venezuelan government revenues had quadrupled. With a new sense of confidence, Venezuelan president Carlos Andrés Pérez pledged that Venezuela would develop significantly within a few years. By substituting imports, subsidies, and protective tariffs, he planned to use oil profits to increase employment, fight poverty, increase income, and diversify the economy. However, OPEC members had been violating production quotas, and oil prices fell drastically again in the 1980s, pushing Venezuela deeper into debt.
United States–Venezuela relations
After Hugo Chávez was first elected President of Venezuela by a landslide in 1998, the South American country began to reassert sovereignty over its oil reserves. This action challenged the comfortable position held by U.S. economic interests for the better part of a century. The Chávez administration overturned the privatization of the state-owned oil company PDVSA, raising royalties for foreign firms and eventually doubling the country's GDP. Those oil revenues were used to fund social programs aimed at fostering human development in areas such as health, education, employment, housing, technology, culture, pensions, and access to safe drinking water.
History of Venezuela
By the middle of the 16th century, not many more than 2,000 Europeans lived in the region that became Venezuela. The opening of gold mines in 1632 at Yaracuy led to the introduction of slavery, at first involving the indigenous population, then imported Africans. The first real economic success of the colony involved the raising of livestock, much helped by the grassy plains known as "llanos". The society that developed as a result — a handful of Spanish landowners and widely dispersed native herdsmen on Spanish-introduced horses — recalls primitive feudalism, certainly a powerful concept in the 16th-century Spanish imagination that (perhaps more fruitfully) bears comparison in economic terms with the latifundia of antiquity.
Venezuela
The discovery of massive oil deposits in Lake Maracaibo during World War I proved to be pivotal for Venezuela and transformed the basis of its economy from a heavy dependence on agricultural exports. It prompted an economic boom that lasted into the 1980s; by 1935, Venezuela's per capita gross domestic product was Latin America's highest. Gómez benefited handsomely from this, as corruption thrived, but at the same time, the new source of income helped him centralize the Venezuelan state and develop its authority.
1969 Curaçao uprising
In the 19th century the island's economy was in poor shape. It had few industries other than dyewood, salt, and straw hats. After the Panama Canal was built and oil was discovered in Venezuela's Maracaibo Basin, Curaçao's economic situation changed for the better. Shell opened a refinery in 1918; it was continually expanded until 1930. The plant's production peaked in 1952, when it employed around 11,000 people. This economic boom attracted a number of immigrants, particularly from other Caribbean islands, Suriname, Madeira, and the Netherlands. Thereafter, the number of people working in the oil industry shrank and, by 1969, the number of people employed by Shell in Curaçao had dropped to around 4,000. This was a result both of automation and of sub-contracting. Employees of sub-contractors typically received lower wages than Shell workers. Unemployment rose from 5,000 in 1961 to 8,000 to 1966, with nonwhite, unskilled workers particularly affected. The government's focus on attracting tourism brought some economic growth, but did little to reduce unemployment.
History of the Venezuelan oil industry
In 2005, PDVSA opened its first office in China, and announced plans to nearly triple its fleet of oil tankers in that region. Chávez had long stated that he would like to sell more Venezuelan oil to China so his country can become more independent of the United States. 
In 2007, Chávez struck a deal with Brazilian oil company Petrobras to build an oil refinery in northeastern Brazil where crude oil will be sent from both Brazil and Argentina. A similar deal was struck with Ecuador where Venezuela agreed to refine of crude oil from Ecuador at discount prices. Cuba agreed to let thousands of Venezuelans be received for medical treatment and health programs, and in turn, Venezuela agreed to sell several thousands of barrels to Cuba at a 40% discount under Petrocaribe program.
Petroleum refining processes
In North America, the first oil well was drilled in 1858 by James Miller Williams in Ontario, Canada. In the United States, the petroleum industry began in 1859 when Edwin Drake found oil near Titusville, Pennsylvania. The industry grew slowly in the 1800s, primarily producing kerosene for oil lamps. In the early twentieth century, the introduction of the internal combustion engine and its use in automobiles created a market for gasoline that was the impetus for fairly rapid growth of the petroleum industry. The early finds of petroleum like those in Ontario and Pennsylvania were soon outstripped by large oil "booms" in Oklahoma, Texas and California.
History of the Venezuelan oil industry
Venezuela is one of the world's largest exporters of oil and has the world's largest proven oil reserves at an estimated 296.5 billion barrels (20% of global reserves) as of 2012.
History of the petroleum industry
In 1846 the first oil well in the world was drilled in the South Caucasus region of Russian Empire, on the Aspheron Peninsula north-east of Baku (in settlement Bibi-Heybat), by Russian Major Alekseev based on data of Russian scientist N. Voskoboynikov.
Wamsutta Oil Refinery
In 1854, natural oil (petroleum) was discovered in western Pennsylvania. In 1859, George Bissell and Edwin L. Drake made the first successful use of a drilling rig at Titusville, Pennsylvania. This single well soon exceeded the entire cumulative oil output which had taken place in Europe since the 1650s. The principal product of the oil was kerosene. Another related product was natural gas. Kerosene and natural gas soon replaced whale oil in North America. In New England, whaling reached its peak in 1857, then gradually began a period of decline. The situation was aggravated considerably by the American Civil War, as whaling vessels and crews were diverted to assist in blockading the Confederate coastal areas and ports. By 1900, the whaling industry had collapsed, due in part to the discovery and refining of petroleum from the western Pennsylvania oil fields.
Bolivar Coastal Fields
Bolivar Coastal Complex is entirely owned and operated by Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), ]) (Petroleum of Venezuela), the Venezuelan state-owned oiland natural gas company. It has activities in exploration, production, refining and exporting oil, as well as exploration and production of natural gas. Since its founding on 1 January 1976 with the nationalization of the Venezuelan oil industry, PDVSA has dominated the oil industry of Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter. According to the List of oil fields, the Bolivar Coastal Field is ranked #7 in the world in recoverable oil, past and future at 30-32 billion barrels. Portions of the oil field have already been fully depleted.
The large oil seeps around Lake Maracaibo were noted in the 16th century by the Spanish, who used the tar to caulk their ships and treat skin problems on livestock. The U.S. based General Asphalt Co. conducted the first geological investigations on the east shore of Lake Maracaibo but sold its concession to Shell in 1912. Shell drilled the discovery well at Mene Grande in 1914 and the famous Los Barrosos 2 gusher at Cabimas in 1922. Another major find was the 'Zumaque 1' well in 1914, in the area of Mene Grande, Maracaibo Basin, about southeast of Cabimas (Zulia State). Production grew rapidly and this became Shell's most important producing property worldwide. Edward Doheny's Pan American Oil then took the unusual step of obtaining concessions in the lake itself. These concessions were purchased by Indiana Standard (now Amoco) in 1925, but development was minimal until they were sold to Standard Oil of New Jersey (now Exxon) in 1931. Development in Lake Maracaibo proceeded rapidly after the end of the Second World War and this became Exxon's most important producing property worldwide throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
Heavy crude oil
According to World Resources Institute, concentrations of remarkable quantities of heavy oil and oil sands are found in Canada and Venezuela. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported in 2001 that the largest reserves of heavy crude oil in the world were located north of the Orinoco river 270-mile long by 40-mile wide Orinoco Belt in eastern Venezuela. At that time Venezuela began authorizing "joint ventures to upgrade the extra-heavy crude resources." Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) at that time estimated that there were 270 billion barrels of recoverable reserves in the area, the same amount as the conventional oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. The Orinoco Belt in Venezuela is sometimes described as oil sands, but these deposits are non-bituminous, falling instead into the category of heavy or extra-heavy oil due to their lower viscosity. Natural bitumen and extra-heavy oil differ in the degree by which they have been degraded from the original conventional oils by bacteria. Thirty or more countries are known to have reserves.
History of Venezuela (1908–1958)
Between 1908 and 1958, the Republic of Venezuela saw several changes in leadership, including a coup d'etat in 1948. The period also found the country discover its petroleum deposits, which has had a major effect on the economy of Venezuela
Venezuela during World War II
Subsequently, the United States, eager to maintain its access to the oil, agreed to increase oil revenues for Venezuela. Profits were split fifty-fifty between the Venezuelan government and the oil companies, such as Standard Oil and the British-owned Shell Oil. As result, in 1944 Venezuela's oil income was 66% higher than it was in 1941, and by 1947 total income had increased 358%. This "largesse," as Leonard calls it, allowed Venezuela to become one of the few Latin American countries that was able to finance its own modernization in the postwar era, unlike many of the other states in the region, which relied on American economic assistance.
Energy policy of Venezuela
Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1975–1976, creating Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PdVSA), the country's state-run oil and natural gas company. Along with being Venezuela's largest employer, PdVSA accounts for about one-third of the country's GDP, 50% of the government's revenue and 80% of Venezuela's exports earnings.
Energy subsidies
In Venezuela, energy subsidies were equivalent to about 8.9 percent of the country's GDP in 2012. Fuel subsidies were 7.1 percent while electricity subsidies were 1.8 percent. In order to fund this the government used about 85 percent of its tax revenue on these subsidies. It is estimated the subsidies have caused Venezuela to consume 20 percent more energy than without them. The fuel subsidies are given more heavily to the richest part of the population who are consuming the most energy. The fuel subsidies maintained a cost of about $0.01 US for a liter of gasoline at the pump since 1996 until president Nicolas Maduro reduced the national subsidy in 2016 to make it roughly $0.60 US per liter (The local currency is Bolivar and the price per liter of gas is 6 Bolivars). Fuel consumption has increased overall since the 1996 policy began even though the production of oil has fallen more than 350,000 barrels a day since 2008 under that policy. PDVSA, the Venezuelan state oil company, has been losing money on these domestic transactions since the enactment of these policies. These losses can also be attributed to the 2005 Petrocaribe agreement, under which Venezuela sells many surrounding countries petroleum at a reduced or preferable price; essentially a subsidy by Venezuela for countries that are a part of the agreement. The subsidizing of fossil fuels and consequent low cost of fuel at the pump has caused the creation of a large black market. Criminal groups smuggle fuel out of Venezuela to adjacent nations (mainly Colombia). This is due to the large profits that can be gained by this act, as fuel is much more expensive in Colombia than in Venezuela. Despite the fact that this issue is already well known in Venezuela, and insecurity in the region continues to rise, the state has not yet lowered or eliminated these fossil fuel subsidies.
Venezuela
During the colonial period and until after the Second World War, many of the European immigrants to Venezuela came from the Canary Islands, which had a significant cultural impact on the cuisine and customs of Venezuela. These influences on Venezuela have led to the nation being called the 8th island of the Canaries. With the start of oil exploitation in the early 20th century, companies from the United States began establishing operations in Venezuela, bringing with them US citizens. Later, during and after the war, new waves of immigrants from other parts of Europe, the Middle East, and China began; many were encouraged by government-established immigration programs and lenient immigration policies. During the 20th century, Venezuela, along with the rest of Latin America, received millions of immigrants from Europe. This was especially true post-World War II, as a consequence of war-ridden Europe. During the 1970s, while experiencing an oil-export boom, Venezuela received millions of immigrants from Ecuador, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic. Due to the belief that this immigration influx depressed wages, some Venezuelans opposed European immigration. The Venezuelan government, however, were actively recruiting immigrants from Eastern Europe to fill a need for engineers. Millions of Colombians, as well as Middle Eastern and Haitian populations would continue immigrating to Venezuela into the early 21st century.
History of the Venezuelan oil industry
Nationalization become official when the presidency of Carlos Andrés Pérez, whose economic plan, "La Gran Venezuela", called for the nationalization of the oil industry and diversification of the economy via import substitution. The country officially nationalized its oil industry on 1 January 1976 at the site of Zumaque oilwell 1 (Mene Grande), and along with it came the birth of Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) which is the Venezuelan state-owned petroleum company. All foreign oil companies that once did business in Venezuela were replaced by Venezuelan companies. Each of the former concessionaires was simply substituted by a new 'national' oil company, which maintained the structures and functions of its multi-national corporation (MNC)-predecessor.
Petroleum in the United States
Although some oil was produced commercially before 1859 as a byproduct from salt brine wells, the American oil industry started on a major scale with the discovery of oil at the Drake Well in western Pennsylvania in 1859.
Venezuela
For much of the period between 1950 and 1973, the Venezuelan economy was characterized by its stability and sustained strength, factors that contributed decisively to being able to maintain a fixed exchange rate without major inconveniences. In the period of Carlos Andrés Pérez (1974–1979, his first time as president), as a result of the Arab-Israeli war (the Yom Kippur war), the average price of a barrel of oil went from 3.71 to 10.53 dollars and continued to rise to exceed 29 dollars in 1981. The income of the public sector went from 18,960 million bolivars in 1973 to 45.564 million in 1974. The economic bonanza also had the characteristics of an economic bubble, but Venezuelans remember the "Ta barato, dame dos". The increased inflow of funds to savings and loan entities and mortgage banks allowed an increase in the mortgage loan portfolio, which also tripled. In general, Venezuela was a prosperous country in the governments of Rómulo Betancourt (1945- – ; 1959–1964), Rafael Caldera (1969–1974; 1994 – ) and Carlos Andrés Pérez (1974–1979; 1989 – ). In 1975 the iron industry was nationalized and the following year the oil industry, creating Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA). Both Caldera and Pérez partially broke with the Betancourt Doctrine.
The election in 1973 of Carlos Andrés Pérez coincided with an oil crisis, in which Venezuela's income exploded as oil prices soared; oil industries were nationalized in 1976. This led to massive increases in public spending, but also increases in external debts, which continued into the 1980s when the collapse of oil prices during the 1980s crippled the Venezuelan economy. As the government started to devalue the currency in February 1983 to face its financial obligations, Venezuelans' real standards of living fell dramatically. A number of failed economic policies and increasing corruption in government led to rising poverty and crime, worsening social indicators, and increased political instability.
Petroleum politics
Similarly Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1976.
List of companies of Venezuela
Venezuela is a federal republic located on the northern coast of South America. Oil was discovered in the early 20th century and, today, Venezuela has the world's largest known oil reserves and has been one of the world's leading exporters of oil. Previously an underdeveloped exporter of agricultural commodities such as coffee and cocoa, oil quickly came to dominate exports and government revenues. The 1980s oil glut led to an external debt crisis and a long-running economic crisis. Inflation peaked at 100% in 1996 and poverty rates rose to 66% in 1995 as (by 1998) per capita GDP fell to the same level as 1963, down a third from its 1978 peak. The recovery of oil prices in the early 2000s gave Venezuela oil funds not seen since the 1980s. A destabilized economy led to a crisis in Bolivarian Venezuela, resulting in hyperinflation, an economic depression, shortages of basic goods and drastic increases in poverty, disease, child mortality, malnutrition, and crime.
Energy policy of Venezuela
Venezuela has been producing oil for nearly a century and was an OPEC founder-member. In 2005, Venezuela produced 162 million tons of oil, which is 4.1% of world's total production. By the oil production Venezuela ranks seventh in the world. Venezuela is the world's eight oil exporter and fifth largest net exporter. In 2012, 11 percent of US oil imports came from Venezuela.
History of the Venezuelan oil industry
According to Cannon, the state income from oil revenue grew "from 51% of total income in 2000 to 56% 2006"; oil exports increased "from 77% in 1997 [...] to 89% in 2006"; and his administration's dependence on petroleum sales was "one of the chief problems facing the Chávez government". By 2008, exports of everything but oil "collapsed" and in 2012, the World Bank explained that Venezuela's economy is "extremely vulnerable" to changes in oil prices since in 2012 "96% of the country's exports and nearly half of its fiscal revenue" relied on oil production.
Latin American economy
With the discovery of petroleum on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, British and U.S. enterprises invested heavily in drilling crude oil. Laws passed during the regime of Porfirio Díaz reversed colonial law that gave the state rights to subsoil resources, but liberal policies gave full ownership to oil companies to exploit the oil. Foreign ownership of oil was an issue in Mexico, with expropriation of foreign companies in 1938. Large petroleum deposits were found in Venezuela just after the turn of the twentieth century and has become the country's major export commodity.
Opera in Venezuela
The first Venezuelan opera was "El maestro Rufo Zapatero" an opera buffa composed in 1848 by José María Osorio. "Virginia" by José Ángel Montero (sometimes incorrectly called the first Venezuelan opera) debuted in 1877, under the auspices of Antonio Guzmán Blanco. Another major early Venezuelan opera composer was Reynaldo Hahn, who was greatly influenced by his teacher Jules Massenet. He greatly expanded the genre of French operetta, of which "Ciboulette" was his most famous work; he also composed operas as "Le Merchand de Venise".
History of the Venezuelan oil industry
By 1929, the dramatic development of the Venezuela oil industry had begun to dominate all other economic sectors in the country, however, agricultural production began to decrease dramatically. This sudden increase of attention to oil and neglect of the agrarian sector caused the Venezuelan economy to suffer from a phenomenon which later became known as the Dutch Disease. This "disease" occurs when a commodity brings a substantial increase of income in one sector of the economy, causing a strengthening of currency which in turn harms exports of manufacturing and other sectors.
Cesar-Ranchería Basin
Petroleum exploration in the Cesar-Ranchería Basin commenced in 1916. The first exploitation of hydrocarbons was performed in 1921 and 1922 at Infantas in the Ranchería Basin and in 1938 the first well (El Paso-1) was drilled in the Cesar Basin. The basin is relatively underexplored. The first 2D seismic lines were shot in the late 1970s and 1980s. The deepest well, El Paso-3, drilled to a total depth of into the Cretaceous Aguas Blancas Formation. Oil extracted from the La Luna and Lagunitas Formations in the Papayal-1 well provided API gravities between 27 and 42. Gas is produced from the Colón and La Luna Formations at the Maracas Field in the extreme southwest of the basin. A 2012 study of the yet-to-find potential of the Colombian sedimentary basins provided estimates of (P90-P10) total generated oil in the Cesar-Ranchería Basin. The basin is considered to be the second-most prospective of Colombia in coal bed methane (CBM) with 25 % of the country's total resources. Total probable gas reserves from this unconventional source have been estimated in 2014 at between , up from an estimate ten years before of .
Venezuela
In the first half of the 20th century, US oil companies were heavily involved in Venezuela, initially interested only in purchasing concessions. In 1943 a new government introduced a 50/50 split in profits between the government and the oil industry. In 1960, with a newly installed democratic government, Hydrocarbons Minister Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso led the creation of OPEC, the consortium of oil-producing countries aiming to support the price of oil.
Petroleum industry in Mexico
In the 1930s, as a consequence of worldwide economic depression, the lack of new oil discoveries, increased taxation, political instability, and Venezuela's emergence as a more attractive source of petroleum, output fell to just 20% of its 1921 level. Production began to recover with the 1932 discovery of the Poza Rica field near Veracruz, which would become Mexico's main source of petroleum for the next several decades.
Urumaco
Urumaco is a town in the state of Falcón in Venezuela. It is of interest to paleontologists due to its rich fossil history. The arid climate of the region means that the fossils are not hidden by vegetation. The fossils were first made known to science by geologists who came across them while looking for oil, which is abundant in some parts of Venezuela. The paleontological wealth of Urumaco makes it the most fossil-rich zone of northern South America.
Gulf of Venezuela
It was discovered by westerners in 1499 when an expedition commanded by Alonso de Ojeda in which he was accompanied by Amerigo Vespucci, explored the Venezuelan coasts compiling information and naming the new lands, said expedition arrived to the gulf after passing through the Netherlands Antilles and the Peninsula of Paraguaná.
History of Venezuela
Christopher Columbus sailed along the eastern coast of Venezuela on his third voyage in 1498, the only one of his four voyages to reach the South American mainland. This expedition discovered the so-called "Pearl Islands" of Cubagua and Margarita off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. Later Spanish expeditions returned to exploit these islands' abundant pearl oysters, enslaving the indigenous people of the islands and harvesting the pearls intensively. They became one of the most valuable resources of the incipient Spanish Empire in the Americas between 1508 and 1531, by which time the local indigenous population and the pearl oysters had been devastated.
Venezuela during World War II
According to author Thomas M. Leonard, Venezuela's oil garnered "intense interest" from the Allies and the Axis, both before and during World War II. Thus, Venezuela's main strategic goal from 1939 to 1945 was to protect its oil from being seized by a belligerent nation. Closely related to this goal was the need to market oil, which had become the mainstay of the Venezuelan economy. Leonard says that the war could, ideally, have resulted in an "economic boom" if Venezuela could maintain a policy of strict neutrality and sell oil to both sides. However, neither the Axis or the Allies were likely to tolerate such a situation, and in the end, Venezuela sided with the Allies.
Petroleum industry in Mexico
Petroleum was known in Mexico before the arrival of the Spaniards and used by the natives for incense and to repair canoes. In Mexico's colonial era (1521-1821), ranchers lost cattle to tar pits in the Gulf Coast Region, so it was considered more of a hazard than a valuable resource. Exploratory wells were first drilled in Mexico in 1869 by U.S. entrepreneurs.
Oil reserves in Venezuela
The proven oil reserves in Venezuela are recognized as the largest in the world, totaling as of 1 January 2014. In early 2011, then-president Hugo Chávez and the Venezuelan government announced that the nation's oil reserves had surpassed that of the previous long-term world leader, Saudi Arabia. OPEC said that Saudi Arabia's reserves stood at in 2009.
Venice, Los Angeles
In 1929, oil was discovered south of Washington Street on the Venice Peninsula. Within two years, 450 oil wells covered the area, and drilling waste clogged the remaining waterways. It was a short-lived boom that provided needed income to the community, which suffered during the Great Depression. The wells produced oil into the 1970s.
Economy of Curaçao
The discovery of oil in the Maracaibo Basin of Venezuela in the early 20th century forced the Venezuelan government to search for ideal locations for large scale refining. Curaçao's proximity to the country, naturally deep harbors, and stable government led Royal Dutch Shell to construct the , the largest refinery in the world at the time. The refinery is located in Willemstad harbour and began operating in 1918.
History of the Venezuelan oil industry
With a large influx of foreign "invaders", the effects of a xenophobia that had not been seen before became apparent. Novelist Jose Rafael Pocaterra described the oilmen as "the new Spaniards". He wrote in 1918:One day some Spaniards mounted a dark apparatus on three legs, a grotesque stork with crystal eyes. They drew something (on a piece of paper) and opened their way through the forest. Other new Spaniards would open roads…would drill the earth from the top of fantastic towers, producing the fetid fluid…the liquid gold converted into petroleum.
Táchira
Táchira State covers a total surface area of and, as of the 2011 census, had a population of 1,168,908.
At the end of the 19th century, Táchira state was the place where oil was discovered in Venezuela. It was exploited for many years. Currently, its main economic revenues come from the production of coffee and pineapple. The cattle and agricultural activities play an important role in Táchira's economy. There is also a strong industrial sector which focuses on the processing of potato, sugar, milk, and cheese and the production of textiles.
Camisea Gas Project
In July 1981 the Peruvian government signed an oil contract for blocks 38 and 42 with Royal Dutch Shell. The contract covered approximately in the southern part of the Ucayali Basin. The Camisea gas fields were discovered in 1986 by Shell. By 1987, two non-associated natural gas fields, San Martín and Cashiriari, were approved economically feasible. In March 1988, the preliminary agreement on exploration was signed between Petroperú and Shell. However, the talks ended in August of that year without reaching a final agreement.
Petronas
Before the formation of Malaysia, Royal Dutch Shell first began the oil exploration in Miri, Sarawak; after Rajah Charles Brooke signed the first Oil Mining Lease in 1909. In 1910, the first oil well was drilled in Miri. This oil well is later known as the Grand Old Lady. In 1929, oil was discovered in Brunei. There were no other drilling activities in Borneo or British Malaya until 1950s. In 1966, the enactment of Petroleum Mining Act gave Exxon and Shell rights to explore oil territories and produce oil royalties and tax payments to the government. In the late 1960s, Esso and Continental Oil were given concessions to explore oil off the shores of the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. By 1974, Malaysia's output of crude oil stood at about to .
History of the Venezuelan oil industry
Upon arrival in the early 16th century, the Spanish conquerors learned from the indigenous people to use the naturally occurring bitumen for caulking their ships as well, and for treating their weapons. The first documented shipment of petroleum from Venezuela was in 1539 when a single barrel of oil was sent to Spain to alleviate the gout of Emperor Charles V.
Economic policy of the Hugo Chávez administration
Venezuela is a major producer of oil products, which remains the keystone of the Venezuelan economy. Under the Chávez government, crude oil production decreased from 3.12 million barrels a day when Chávez took office in 1999, to 2.95 million barrels a day in 2007, whilst oil prices increased 660%. The state income from oil revenue "increas[ed] from 51% of total income in 2000 to 56% 2006"; oil exports "have grown from 77% in 1997 [...] to 89% in 2006"; and some economists view "this dependence on oil is one of the chief problems facing the Chávez government". Indeed, Stephen Randall, Director of the University of Calgary's Latin American Research Centre, points out that during his years in power Venezuela increased its dependency on oil exports to 95% (2012) from 80% when he took power in 1999. Furthermore, before the financial crisis in 2008 Venezuelan oil was selling at $129/bbl. It then dropped to $43/bbl by March 2009. Instead of reining in spending Chavez responded to reduced revenues by introducing more exchange controls and continuing with nationalizations. A 2014 article by "CNBC" stated that under Chávez, oil production declined from 3.5 million barrels per day to 2.6 million barrels per day, though Venezuela only made a profit from 1.4 million barrels per day due to Venezuela giving large amounts of its oil away for free. "CNBC" continued stating that though oil production decreased, public spending increased to over 50% of the GDP, spending more than received in oil profits which led to foreign loans that amounted to over $106 billion as of 2012. Foreign investment flows by the end of his presidency in 2013 were half what they had been in 1999.
Oil reserves in Venezuela
In addition to conventional oil, Venezuela has oil sands deposits similar in size to those of Canada, and approximately equal to the world's reserves of conventional oil. Venezuela's Orinoco tar sands are less viscous than Canada's Athabasca oil sands – meaning they can be produced by more conventional means – but they are buried too deep to be extracted by surface mining. Estimates of the recoverable reserves of the Orinoco Belt range from to . In 2009, USGS updated this value to .
Petroleum politics
Estimates of Venezuelan oil production vary. Venezuela claims its oil production is over , but oil industry analysts and the U.S. Energy Information Administration believe it to be much lower. In addition to other reporting irregularities, much of its production is extra-heavy oil, which may or may not be included with conventional oil in the various production estimates. The U.S. Energy Information Agency estimated Venezuela's oil production in December 2006 was only , a 24% decline from its peak of 3.3 million in 1997.
First Republic of Venezuela
The First Republic of Venezuela ("Primera República de Venezuela" in Spanish) was the first independent government of Venezuela, lasting from July 5, 1811, to July 25, 1812. The period of the First Republic began with the overthrow of the Spanish colonial authorities and the establishment of the Junta Suprema de Caracas on April 19, 1810, initiating the Venezuelan War of Independence, and ended with the surrender of the republican forces to the Spanish Captain Domingo de Monteverde. The congress of Venezuela declared the nation's independence on July 5, 1811, and later wrote a constitution for it. In doing so, Venezuela is notable for being the first Spanish American colony to declare its independence.
Gulf Oil
In 1934, the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) was formed as a joint venture by British Petroleum and Gulf. Both British Petroleum and Gulf held equal shares in the venture. KOC pioneered the exploration for oil in Kuwait during the late 1930s. Oil was discovered at Burgan in 1938 but it was not until 1946 that the first crude oil was shipped. Oil production started from Rawdhatain in 1955 and Minagish in 1959. KOC started gas production in 1964. It was the cheap oil and gas being shipped from Kuwait that formed the economic basis for Gulf's diverse petroleum sector operations in Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa, and the Indian subcontinent. These last operations were coordinated by Gulf Oil Company, Eastern Hemisphere Ltd (GOCEH) from their offices at 2 Portman Street in London W1. While serving as General Manager and Vice President of Gulf Oil, Willard F. Jones facilitated the expansion of crude oil import from Kuwait, a nation that was - at the time - a yet incipient supply region to the United States. This expansion program implemented by Robert E. Garret and Jones consisted of construction of a fleet of supertankers and was meant to "result in a sharp increase in the processing of crude oil and various petroleum products at a time when the domestic demand for (such) products (was) at an unprecedented peak."
Gulf expanded on a worldwide basis from the end of the Second World War. The company leveraged its international drilling experience to other areas of the world, and by mid-1943 had established a presence in the eastern oil fields of Venezuela as Mene Grande Oil Company. Much of the company's retail sales expansion was through the acquisition of privately owned chains of filling stations in various countries, allowing Gulf outlets to sell product (sometimes through "matching" arrangements) from the oil that it was "lifting" in Canada, the Gulf of Mexico, Kuwait, and Venezuela. Some of these acquisitions were to prove less than resilient in the face of economic and political developments from the 1970s on. Gulf invested heavily in product technology and developed many specialty products, particularly for application in the maritime and aviation engineering sectors. It was particularly noted for its range of lubricants and greases.
Gulf Oil reached the peak of its development around 1970. In that year, the company processed of crude daily, held assets worth $6.5 billion ($ billion today), employed 58,000 employees worldwide, and was owned by 163,000 shareholders. In addition to its petroleum marketing interests, Gulf was a major producer of petrochemicals, plastics, and agricultural chemicals. Through its subsidiary, Gulf General Atomic Inc., it was also active in the nuclear energy sector. Gulf abandoned its involvement in the nuclear sector after a failed deal to build atomic power plants in Romania in the mid-1970s.
Petroleum industry in Nigeria
The history of oil exploration in Nigeria dates back to 1907 when Nigerian Bitumen Corporation conducted exploratory work in the country, at the onset of World War I the firm's operation were stopped. Thereafter, licenses were given to D'Arcy Exploration Company and Whitehall Petroleum but neither company found oil of commercial value and they returned their licenses in 1923. A new license covering was given to Shell D'arcy Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, a consortium of Shell and British Petroleum (then known as Anglo-Iranian). The company began exploratory work in 1937. The consortium was granted license to explore oil all over the territory of Nigeria but the acreage allotted to the company in the original license was reduced in 1951 and then between 1955 and 1957. Drilling activities started in 1951 with the first test well drilled in Owerri area. Oil was discovered in non-commercial quantities at Akata, near Eket in 1953. Prior to the Akata find, the company had spent around 6 million pounds in exploratory activities in the country. Shell-BP in the pursuit of commercially available petroleum found oil in Oloibiri, Nigeria in 1956. Other important oil wells discovered during the period were Afam and Bomu in Ogoni territory. Production of crude oil began in 1957 and in 1960, a total of 847,000 tonnes of crude oil was exported. Towards the end of the 1950s, non-British firms were granted license to explore for oil: Mobil in 1955, Tenneco in 1960, Gulf Oil and later Chevron in 1961, Agip in 1962, and Elf in 1962.
Prior to the discovery of oil, Nigeria (like many other African countries) strongly relied on agricultural exports to other countries to supply their economy. Many Nigerians thought the developers were looking for palm oil. But after nearly 50 years searching for oil in the country, Shell-BP discovered the oil at Oloibiri in the Niger Delta. The first oil field began production in 1958.
Barco oil concession
The Barco oil concession was one of the main concessions in Colombia during the early development of its petroleum industry, the other being the De Mares concession.
Oil was first found in the Norte de Santander department near the border with Venezuela in 1905, but development did not start until 1936. A joint venture between the Texas Corporation and Socony-Vacuum (now Texaco and Mobil) sank the wells and built a pipeline across the mountains and through swampy jungle to the Caribbean coast at Coveñas. Workers were harassed by Motilone Indians defending their territory, and several died.
The concession began operation in 1939 and continued into the 1960s, when it began to be depleted. Other fields in the region are still productive.
Hugo Chávez
At the start of the 21st century, Venezuela was the world's fifth largest exporter of crude oil, with oil accounting for 85% of the country's exports, therefore dominating the country's economy. Previous administrations had sought to privatise this industry, with U.S. corporations having a significant level of control, but the Chávez administration wished to curb this foreign control over the country's natural resources by nationalising much of it under the state-run oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA). In 2001, the government introduced a new Hydrocarbons Law through which they sought to gain greater state control over the oil industry: they did this by raising royalty taxes on the oil companies and also by introducing the formation of "mixed companies", whereby the PdVSA could have joint control with private companies over industry. By 2006, all of the 32 operating agreements signed with private corporations during the 1990s had been converted from being primarily or solely corporate-run to being at least 51% controlled by PDVSA. Chávez had also removed many of the managers and executives of PdVSA and replaced them with political allies, stripping the state-owned company expertise.
Rómulo Betancourt
Rationalizing the complications of nationalization at the time, Betancourt's government raised taxes on oil production instead accomplishing the same goal: Venezuela's oil riches to benefit Venezuelans. In the late 1940s Venezuela was producing close to annually and as production climbed, the tax followed. Venezuela was the Allies' top oil supplier during the wars occurring in the European continent. Betancourt identified this potential to play an important historical role, using the knowledge to his nation's advantage transforming Venezuela into a global player. Germany then lacked reliable access to oil limiting troop movements. Some historians identify this vulnerability a deciding factor in Hitler's defeat. Venezuelan oil played a key role.
Comodoro Rivadavia
The oil production started in Chubut in 1907, when a drilling rig which was looking for water discovered oil instead. The Argentine oil industry started in Comodoro Rivadavia, and was facilitated by the 1886 National Mining Code ("Codigo de Mineria de la Nación"). This code established that the oil fields belonged to the State, and that they could also be exploited by the private sector by concession.
Economy of Venezuela
Venezuela is a major producer of petroleum products, which remain the keystone of the Venezuelan economy. The International Energy Agency shows how Venezuela's oil production has fallen in the last years, producing only daily, down from 3.5 million in 1998. However, the oil incomes will double its value in local currency with the recent currency devaluation. Venezuela has large energy subsidies. In 2015, the cost of petrol was just US$0.06 per gallon, costing 23% of government revenues. In February 2016, the government finally decided to raise the price, but only to 6 bolivar (about 60¢ at the official rate of exchange) per litre for premium and just 1 bolivar (10¢) for lower-grade petrol.
Venezuela
Corruption in Venezuela is high by world standards and was so for much of the 20th century. The discovery of oil had worsened political corruption, and by the late 1970s, Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso's description of oil as "the Devil's excrement" had become a common expression in Venezuela. Venezuela has been ranked one of the most corrupt countries on the Corruption Perceptions Index since the survey started in 1995. The 2010 ranking placed Venezuela at number 164, out of 178 ranked countries in government transparency. By 2016, the rank had increased to 166 out of 178. Similarly, the World Justice Project ranked Venezuela 99th out of 99 countries surveyed in its 2014 Rule of Law Index.
History of the Venezuelan oil industry
The Indigenous peoples in Venezuela, like many ancient societies already utilized crude oils and asphalts from petroleum seeps, which ooze through the ground to the surface, in the years before the Spanish conquistadors. The thick black liquid, known to the locals as "mene", was primarily used for medical purposes, as an illumination source, and for the caulking of canoes.
History of Venezuela
Word of Spain's troubles in 1808 in the Napoleonic Wars soon reached Caracas, but only on 19 April 1810 did its "cabildo" (city council) decide to follow the example set by the Spanish provinces two years earlier. On 5 July 1811, seven of the ten provinces of the Captaincy General of Venezuela declared their independence in the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence. The First Republic of Venezuela was lost in 1812 following the 1812 Caracas earthquake and the Battle of La Victoria (1812). Simón Bolívar led an "Admirable Campaign" to retake Venezuela, establishing the Second Republic of Venezuela in 1813; but this did not last either, falling to a combination of a local uprising and Spanish royalist reconquest. Only as part of Bolívar's campaign to liberate New Granada in 1819-20 did Venezuela achieve a lasting independence from Spain (initially as part of Gran Colombia).
History of Venezuela (1999–present)
The next day he announced intentions to re-take control of oil projects in the Orinoco Belt, which he said are "the world's largest crude reserve." These reserves, which can be exploited with modern technologies, may place Venezuela ahead of Saudi Arabia in terms of oil reserves.
Corruption in Venezuela
The level of corruption in Venezuela is high by world standards and is prevalent throughout many levels of Venezuelan society. Discovery of oil in Venezuela in the early 20th century has worsened political corruption. The large amount of corruption and mismanagement in the country has resulted in severe economic difficulties, part of the crisis in Bolivarian Venezuela. Transparency International's 2017 Corruption Perception Index ranks the country in 169th place out of 180 countries.