Orinoco Belt

The Orinoco Belt is a region in eastern Venezuela, south of the Orinoco River, that sits on top of the world's largest deposits of petroleum. It is about 600 km from east to west and 70 km from north to south, covering roughly 55,300 square kilometres. It is known locally in Spanish as the Faja Petrolifera del Orinoco.

The oil here is extra-heavy crude, thick like tar, and hard to pump. Because of these vast deposits, Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. The belt is divided into four exploration and production areas: Boyaca, Junin, Ayacucho and Carabobo.

How much oil?

Venezuela's heavy oil deposits are estimated at about 1,200 billion barrels in total, much of it in this belt. The state oil company PDVSA estimated up to 235 billion barrels could be produced, which would make it the largest petroleum reserve in the world. In 2009 the US Geological Survey put the technically recoverable amount at 513 billion barrels, though it did not say how much would be worth recovering.

A long story

The first well, La Canoa-1, was drilled in 1936 by Standard Oil of New Jersey. It ran for 44 days and produced about 1,000 barrels a day before the work stopped because the thick oil was hard to extract. In 1938 another well, Zuata 1, found oil. Venezuela later drew up a plan to develop the belt up to 2030.

On the globe

Look for eastern Venezuela along the Orinoco River in northern South America.