The following reasons have produced enormous potential of tropical forests in the region. These reasons are; the southern, central and eastern ranges of Venezuela, closeness to sea and its geographic position in an equatorial region.Production of sedimentary basin in Jurassic having a direction of northeast to south west in western part of Venezuela, has assisted to produce huge oil and gas basins in Venezuela. Therefore, at present this country is the fifth oil-exporting company in the world and the third oil-exporting company in OPEC.
Oil fields distribution in Venezuela
As it is inferred from the following distribution map, the oil fields of Venezuela have been concentrated in two parts. Naturally, industry complexes that are dependent to oil and gas industries have been distributed in these regions. The most important and principal oil fields of this country are in the following regions; Lake Maracaibo, the beds of Orinoco, Falcon, Apure-Barinas and Cariaco rivers. The principal natural gas reservoirs of Venezuela are located at Paria Gulf and central part of Anzoategui.
Oil and gas reserves
Crude oil: 75.27 billion barrel (2006)
Natural gas: 4.276 trillion m3 (2006)
Gas sector
According to the statistics and information of oil and gas Journal of Venezuela, 151 trillion m3 of the world gas proved reserve are in Venezuela. Therefore, it has the second rank of the western hemisphere in this case (the United States has the first rank). It has the ninth rank in world in this respect. Venezuela produced 1.05 trillion m of gas within 2003 that totally consumed for domestic purposes. Oil and gas reservoirs are common in this country and oil production will cause to produce gas.
In accordance with the available data, about 70% of Venezuela natural gas is used in petroleum industry to inject for crude oil exploitation. As the western part of the country does not have gas reservoirs, therefore, crude oil production is reduced in this region. To solve this problem, Venezuela imports gas from Colombia.
PdVSA Company is responsible for executive affairs of gas industry. The significance of gas industry is recognized from late 1990s. A law was approved related to it in 1999. This law has great emphasis on investment of private sector to develop gas industry and domestic systems related to gas, gas refinery, distribution and consumption of gas inside the country, etc. Domestic production and consumption of natural gas is designed in the following graph;