PDVSA Petróleos de Venezuela : The Orinoco Oil Belt revealed its natural riches 81 years ago

El Tigre.- With the drilling of Canoa-1 well, on January 7, 1936 the Orinoco Oil Belt revealed to the world the large extra heavy oil reservoir that lied underneath its soil. It is a vast area of more than 55,000 square kilometers, cutting across the states of Apure, Barinas, Guárico, Anzoátegui, Monagas and Delta Amacuro.

Canoa-1, located near the community of La Canoa in southern Anzoátegui state, was active for approximately 44 days producing 44,000 net barrels of 7° API crude oil per day. The multinational Standard Oil Company declared the well dead due to the difficulty of extracting the extra heavy hydrocarbon thus abandoning exploitation activities.

Decades later, history took a different turn. The nationalization of the Orinoco Oil Belt -now named 'Hugo Chávez'- marked the transition from the sellout policies of the old Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) to the sovereign policies fostered by President Hugo Chávez, the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution.

On May 1, 2007, President Chávez strengthened the nationalization with the signing of Decree 5200 in a massive event imbued with great patriotic spirit at the José Antonio Anzoátegui Industrial Complex. The working class had a leading role in that historic moment when we took the reins of Belt operations.

Prior to the advent of President Chávez, at the time of the Fourth Republic, the blocks of the Orinoco Oil Belt were named Machete, Zuata, Hamaca and Cerro Negro. But he arrived to dignify our history with the courage of our heroes, and renamed them after independence battles: Boyacá, Junín, Ayacucho and Carabobo, respectively, thus instilling this area with the emancipation spirit of our ancestors who liberated us from the Spanish Empire.

Today, 81 years after the discovery of the Orinoco Oil Belt, PDVSA proudly celebrates the recovery of this great reservoir which now supports operational as well as social projects at the service of the Venezuelan people.