Coal

Venezuela has large coal reserves, most of these located in the western part of the country. High volatile bituminous coals from the Paso Diablo mine of western Venezuela are high quality (low ash and sulfur) Annual production currently is about 8 Mt Coal deposits of the Tertiary Maracaibo Basin in western Venezuela were formed in a foreland basin environment.

528 million ton of coal reserves have been recognized in Venezuela. 7.85 million ton of coal was produced in 2003. 600,000 ton was used for domestic affairs and the rest were exported to Latin America. The rate of coal production has been indicated in the following graph for the period between1980 and 2003.

This part of industry is administered by Carbozulia organization. It is an affiliated section to PdVSA. This organization has close collaboration with foreign countries and its goal is to increase the production of coal up to 10 million ton till 2015.

The most important barriers in this section of Venezuela economy is the lack of infrastructure facilities and transportation system. The above-mentioned company signed agreement with a Brazilian coal mines company in 2005. The aim of this agreement is to establish railway and marine transportation for carrying coal.

Geographically South America is the continent with the least coal reserves with only 2.2% of total reserves and only 1.5% of the bituminous reserves. Africa has less than 6% of total reserves with these reserves concentrated in the bituminous category and dominated by South Africa with an estimated 90% of the continent's reserves.

Botswana and Zimbabwe have the only significant reserves outside South Africa.

Both North America and Asia have over 25% each of total reserves. While the reserves in North America are almost equally split between bituminous coal and sub bituminous/lignite, Asia has a significantly higher proportion of reserves in the bituminous classification, accounting for around 35% of total bituminous reserves worldwide.

Total coal reserves held by Europe were slightly over 30% of the world total, while the individual categories show a higher share of world sub-bituminous and lignite reserves and a lower proportion of bituminous (22%).

European reserves are dominated by two countries: Germany (21%) and the Russian Federation (50%). In respect of bituminous reserves, Germany, Poland, Russian Federation and the Ukraine account for over 95% of the European reserves.

Total world recoverable coal was 1,083,259 short tons in 2003. In 2007 total world recoverable reserves of coal are believed to have amount to an estimated 998 billion tons. Global hard (black) coal production has grown by over 46% in the last 25 years to 3837 Mt in 2002 (3801 Mt in 2001). Major producers include China 1326 Mt, USA 916.7 Mt, India 333.7 Mt, Australia 276.0 Mt, South Africa 223.0 Mt, Russia 163.6 Mt, Poland 102.6 Mt, Indonesia 101.2 Mt, Ukraine 82.9 Mt, and Kazakhstan 70.6 Mt. Brown coal/lignite production totalled 876.5 Mt in 2002 compared with 896.9 Mt in 2001. Approximately 14% (almost 528 Mt) of total hard coal production is currently utilised by the steel industry - almost 66% of total global steel production is dependent on coal.

Coal has currenty become the fastest-growing source of energy in the world.

Coal Mining in Venezuela

Venezuela is Latin America’s second largest coal producer, after Colombia with estimated exports of 8Mt. In 2002 the Venezuelan economy entered a recession which was worsened by political unrest, leading to a national strike which continued into early 2003. The strike, together with the introduction of currency controls, caused severe contraction of the economy, with the GDP falling by 9.2% over the course of 2003. Plans to increase the country’s coal production to over 21Mt by 2008 will rely on infrastructural development in the country. This radical expansion is based on the rapidly expanding iron, steel and aluminium sectors of Venezuela’s economy. Venezuela has recoverable coal reserves containing some 530 Mt, most of which is bituminous. Most production

is exported, mainly to the USA and Europe. Coal use in Venezuela has is mainly limited to the use of coking coal in small local foundries in the Andes region