March 30, 2006
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world

(Panorama Digital) - "The American newspaper The Wall Street Journal said Venezuela has the largest hydrocarbons reserves in the world.

The newspaper highlighted in its front page that 'thanks to advanced technology in its oil industry, especially in the area of crude recovery', Venezuela is now in first place on the global list of reserves.

This happened after the International Energy Agency (AIE) ratified the total recovery of the production capabilities of the Venezuelan state owned PDVSA.

The AIE added the 600.000 conventional crude barrels extracted from the Orinoco Oil Belt to the production of the Organization of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC) and, therefore, acknowledges the total reserves of this belt as conventional.

This means that 235,000 million barrels of heavy and extra heavy oil of this belt must be added to the 80.582 million barrels of conventional reserves, for a total of 315,000 million barrels.

This amount places Venezuelan reserves on top of the Saudi Arabian hydrocarbon reserves, which are 261,000 million barrels. It also represents a little less than 50% of the total reserves of the Middle East.

Meanwhile, during the second semester of last year, PDVSA began the Magna Reserve Project together with other six international companies, for the quantification and certification of the Orinoco Belt reserves.

The Magna Reserve Project is part of the 'Oil Sowing Plan 2005- 2012' presented in August 2005 by President Chávez. This plan considers, among other things, PDVSA's production of 5,847,000 daily barrels of crude oil by the year 2012.

The Wall Street Journal highlighted the Orinoco Belt reserves are 'technically easier to produce than those from other countries, because of their physical state' (...)".