page_title: History of the Venezuelan oil industry
section_title: 1908–1940
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Venezuelan oil industry / 1908–1940
caption_attribution_description: English: Headquarters Mene Grande Oil Company built in 1951. From 1968 to 1975 School Gonzaga, Today Carbozulia headquarters
context_page_description: 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 as of 2012.
  In 2008, crude oil production in Venezuela was the tenth-highest in the world at 2,394,020 barrels per day and the country was also the eighth-largest net oil exporter in the world. Venezuela is a founding member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
context_section_description: Despite the knowledge of the existence of oil reserves in Venezuela for centuries, the first oil wells of significance were not drilled until the early 1910s. In 1908, Juan Vicente Gómez replaced his ailing predecessor, Cipriano Castro, as the president of Venezuela.  Over the next few years, Gómez granted several concessions to explore, produce, and refine oil.  Most of these oil concessions were granted to his closest friends, and they in turn passed them on to foreign oil companies that could actually develop them. One such concession was granted to Rafael Max Valladares who hired Caribbean Petroleum Company (later acquired by Royal Dutch Shell) to carry out his oil exploration project. On 15 April 1914, upon the completion of the Zumaque-I (now called MG-I) oil well, the first Venezuelan oilfield of importance, Mene Grande, was discovered by Caribbean Petroleum in the Maracaibo Basin. This major discovery encouraged a massive wave of foreign oil companies to Venezuela in an attempt to gain a foothold in the burgeoning market.
  From 1914 to 1917, several more oil fields were discovered across the country including the emblematic Bolivar Coastal Field; however World War I slowed significant development of the industry. Due to the difficulty in purchasing and transporting the necessary tools and machinery, some oil companies were forced to forego drilling until after the war. By the end of 1917, the first refining operations began at the San Lorenzo refinery to process the Mene Grande field production, and the first significant exports of Venezuelan oil by Caribbean Petroleum left from the San Lorenzo terminal. By the end of 1918, petroleum appeared for the first time on the Venezuelan export statistics at 21,194 metric tons.
  It was the blowout of the Barroso No. 2 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.
  Cabimas still plays an important role in production from the nation's largest oil fields, which are located around and beneath Lake Maracaibo. Other fields are increasing in importance, mainly in eastern Venezuela, where the Oficina Formation was discovered in 1937. About twenty years after the completion of the first oil-producing well Venezuela had become the largest oil exporter in the world and, after the United States, the second largest oil producer. Exports of oil boomed between 1920 and 1935. By the end of the 1930s, Venezuela had become the third-leading oil producer in the world, behind the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as the leading exporter.
caption: The main office of the Mene Grande Oil Company was built in 1951.
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