San Tomé, Venezuela
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San Tomé is an oil company town, or camp, located about northeast of the city of
El Tigre El Tigre is a city of Anzoategui, a state located east of Venezuela's capital city of Caracas. Located in what is called the "Guanipa Mesa", a river (Tigre) runs across the city. The average temperature is 79°F, all year around, and the annua ...
, in the
state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...
of
Anzoátegui Anzoátegui State (, ) is one of the 23 states of Venezuela, states of Venezuela, located in the northeastern region of the country. Anzoátegui is well known for its beaches that attract many visitors. Its coast consists of a single beach approx ...
in
Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...
. The town of San José de Guanipa, also called El Tigrito, lies between El Tigre and San Tomé. San Tomé lies about north of the
Orinoco River The Orinoco () is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers approximately 1 million km2, with 65% of it in Venezuela and 35% in Colombia. It is the List of rivers by discharge, f ...
, and about south of
Puerto la Cruz Puerto La Cruz () is a port city located in Anzoátegui State, in Venezuela. It is the seat of the Juan Antonio Sotillo Municipality. The city has road connections to the state capital, Barcelona, to Lecheria and to Guanta. Geography The cit ...
and its
oil refineries An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, liquefied pet ...
on the
Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...
. San Tomé was originally an American
planned community A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...
built in the 1930s by and for the Mene Grande Oil Company, a subsidiary of
Gulf Oil Corporation Gulf Oil was a major global oil company in operation from 1901 to 1985. The eighth-largest American manufacturing company in 1941 and the ninth largest in 1979, Gulf Oil was one of the Seven Sisters oil companies. Prior to its merger with Stan ...
. Ownership of San Tomé was assumed by Petróleos de Venezuela, Sociedad Anónima (PDVSA) after the oil industry was nationalized in 1975.


Geography

San Tomé is located within the eastern
Venezuelan Llanos The Venezuelan Llanos ( Spanish: ''Llanos Venezolanos'') also simply known as Los Llanos ( English: ''the Plains'') in Venezuela, is a natural region that consists of a very large, flat central depression of approximately 243,774 km2 of exte ...
. It is therefore situated on a flat, open, nearly barren plain; the area is often referred to as the "Mesa de Guanipa" (Table of Guanipa).La Mesa de Guanipa news webpage
/ref> The elevation of San Tomé is about . The climate is fairly steady year round with high temperatures about , low temperatures about , and steady
trade wind The trade winds or easterlies are permanent east-to-west prevailing winds that flow in the Earth's equatorial region. The trade winds blow mainly from the northeast in the Northern Hemisphere and from the southeast in the Southern Hemisphere, ...
s of about from the east-northeast. Summer is a rainy season with an average of to of rain per month. The town of San Tomé is about by in extent, and it consists of two main areas. Campo Norte (North Camp) contains the regional headquarters of Petróleos de Venezuela, Sociedad Anónima (PDVSA), the country's
state-owned State ownership, also called public ownership or government ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, property, or enterprise by the national government of a country or state, or a public body representing a community, as opposed to ...
oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...
and
natural gas Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...
company. Homes for company staff are also in North Camp, which is also called Campo Meneven. Campo Sur (South Camp) is a recreational area and includes workers' residences.


Transport

San Tomé is served by two airports: * San Tomé Airport *
El Tigre Airport El Tigre Airport is an airport serving El Tigre, a town in the state of Anzoátegui in Venezuela. The airport is south of the town. Destines . Barcelona (Venezuela) . Maiquetía See also * * *Transport in Venezuela *List of airports in Ve ...
San Tomé Airport, officially Don Edmundo Barrios Airport is just west of the camp. The airport connects the towns of
El Tigre El Tigre is a city of Anzoategui, a state located east of Venezuela's capital city of Caracas. Located in what is called the "Guanipa Mesa", a river (Tigre) runs across the city. The average temperature is 79°F, all year around, and the annua ...
, El Tigrito, and San Tomé to the rest of the country. The San Tomé-Puerto la Cruz highway connects the town with
Puerto la Cruz Puerto La Cruz () is a port city located in Anzoátegui State, in Venezuela. It is the seat of the Juan Antonio Sotillo Municipality. The city has road connections to the state capital, Barcelona, to Lecheria and to Guanta. Geography The cit ...
on the coast. The largest city to the south is
Ciudad Bolivar Ciudad () is the Spanish word for "city". Ciudad or La Ciudad may also refer to: * La Ciudad (archaeological site), Hohokam ruins in Phoenix, Arizona * La Ciudad, district of Durango City Durango (, ) is the capital and largest city of the n ...
on the
Orinoco River The Orinoco () is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers approximately 1 million km2, with 65% of it in Venezuela and 35% in Colombia. It is the List of rivers by discharge, f ...
.


Oil

The oil concessions for
Gulf Oil Corporation Gulf Oil was a major global oil company in operation from 1901 to 1985. The eighth-largest American manufacturing company in 1941 and the ninth largest in 1979, Gulf Oil was one of the Seven Sisters oil companies. Prior to its merger with Stan ...
in Anzoátegui State were obtained in 1925 from Addison H. McKay, a representative of
Sun Oil Company Sunoco LP is an American master limited partnership organized under Delaware state law and headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Dating back to 1886, the company has transformed from a vertically integrated energy company to a distributor of fuel ...
. In 1927 South American Gulf Company, later known as Venezuelan Gulf Company, set up headquarters in Barcelona. It established its first operations in Soledad across the Orinoco River from Ciudad Bolivar. Equipment was shipped in by river. In the 1930s a large field of
light crude oil Light crude oil is liquid petroleum that has a low density and flows freely at room temperature. It has a low viscosity, low specific gravity and high API gravity due to the presence of a high proportion of light hydrocarbon fractions. It generally ...
was discovered near El Tigrito by the Mene Grande Oil Company (MGO), a subsidiary of Gulf. The oil discovery led to the founding of El Tigre in 1933. The Oficina No. 1 well, a
wildcat well A wildcatter is an individual who drills wildcat wells, which are exploration oil wells drilled in areas not known to be oil fields. Notable wildcatters include Glenn McCarthy, Thomas Baker Slick Sr., Mike Benedum, Joe Trees, Clem S. Clarke, ...
begun in 1933 and completed in 1937, established the highly productive Oficina Formation and caused El Tigre to become a
boomtown A boomtown is a community that undergoes sudden and rapid population and economic growth, or that is started from scratch. The growth is normally attributed to the nearby discovery of a precious resource such as gold, silver, or oil, although t ...
. The name "Oficina" (Office) was derived from the telegraph office in El Tigrito, and the Greater Oficina Area comprises many oil fields over a large fraction of Anzoátegui State. MGO then transferred it headquarters to El Tigre. By 1938 it began construction of a new company town, San Tome. Operations from the region were consolidated there in 1940. A 65 bed hospital was built in 1941, followed by schools in 1942. This was followed by a Club in 1943, then a Commisary in 1947 and an electric plant in 1948. Until the oil discovery, the area had been sparsely populated. By 1940 a road and an
oil pipeline A pipeline is a system of pipes for long-distance transportation of a liquid or gas, typically to a market area for consumption. The latest data from 2014 gives a total of slightly less than of pipeline in 120 countries around the world. The Un ...
had been constructed to connect El Tigre with Puerto La Cruz. An oil terminal had also been built by Mene Grande at Puerto la Cruz. By 1946, 512 wells had been drilled, and the region had produced 127 million barrels of oil. This production occurred during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, when Venezuela was a major supplier of this critical commodity to the United States. At the price of oil in 1946, this quantity of oil had a value . The region just south of San Tomé to the Orinoco River is the "
Orinoco Belt The Orinoco Belt is a territory in the southern strip of the eastern Orinoco River Basin in Venezuela which overlies the world's largest deposits of petroleum. Its local Spanish name is ''Faja Petrolífera del Orinoco'' (Orinoco Petroleum Belt). ...
", a reserve of
heavy crude oil Heavy crude oil (or extra heavy crude oil) is highly viscous oil that cannot easily flow from production wells under normal reservoir conditions. It is referred to as "heavy" because its density or specific gravity is higher than that of light cr ...
. The oil reserve is the largest in the world. Standard Oil of Venezuela and Mene Grande had explored the area just north of the Orinoco in the 1930s, and had discovered this heavy oil reserve. Early on the oil reserve was recognized to be gigantic, but its oil was so viscous and heavy that it was not commercially viable to produce it until the 1980s. For 40 years the name for the reserve was the "Tar Belt". Hollis Hedberg, an American geologist and petroleum scientist, was a primary contributor to Mene Grande's discoveries around El Tigre, where he lived from 1937 to 1939. After 1939 until 1946 he was based in San Tomé, where he was in charge of all geological operations in eastern Venezuela for Mene Grande. Hedberg later served as the chief geologist of Gulf Oil Company and was a professor of geology at
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
.


Oil service camp

San Tomé was built as a service camp for Mene Grande in the late 1930s thru the 1950's on the model of a military base. E.E. "Gene" Brossard, the MGO District Manager for Eastern Venezuela, founded the town. The contractor Gustavo A. San Roman constructed it.
Henri Pittier Henri is the French form of the masculine given name Henry, also in Estonian, Finnish, German and Luxembourgish. Bearers of the given name include: People French nobles * Henri I de Montmorency (1534–1614), Marshal and Constable of France * ...
, a Swiss botanist, engineer, and teacher supplied some of the trees for the town. North Camp was designed for the American staff and offices of MGO, while South Camp was designed for Venezuelan workers. It had Bachelor Quarters, a Commissary, Mess Hall and Club facilities. Executives lived together on "Jefe Hill." A golf course Campo de Golf San Tomé is located just north of the town, and a school (Kindergarten thru Ninth grade) was built for employee children. For many years the principal landmark of the town was its red and white
water tower A water tower is an elevated structure supporting a water tank constructed at a height sufficient to pressurize a water distribution system, distribution system for potable water, and to provide emergency storage for fire protection. Water towe ...
.San Tome expatriates website on archive.org
(access date 15 June 2019)
Gene Brossard's daughter, Emma Brossard, was a San Tomé resident, attending primary school there after 1940, then returning after college graduation in 1950 to work for MGO and raise her family. She wrote her undergraduate dissertation on ''The Mene Grande Oil Company of Venezuela''. E. Brossard became a noted petroleum historian and industry expert, particularly on the Venezuelan oil industry. In 1946 there were 800 residents at San Tomé, while in 1955 about 300 Americans and others worked at San Tomé. After Venezuela nationalized the oil industry in 1975, PDVSA assumed ownership of San Tomé. The town was a thriving business center because of PDVSA. When
Hugo Chávez Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (; ; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician, Bolivarian Revolution, revolutionary, and Officer (armed forces), military officer who served as the 52nd president of Venezuela from 1999 until De ...
came to power in 1999, he started directing PDVSA and effectively turned it into a direct government arm whose profits would be injected into social spending.Wiseman, Colin and Daniel Béland. "The Politics of Institutional Change in Venezuela: Oil Policy During the Presidency of Hugo Chávez." ''Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies,'' Vol 35, No. 70 (2010), pp. 141–164. ''JSTOR''. Accessed 3 November 2018. Emma Brossard commented in 2005, "Venezuelan oil fields had a depletion rate of 25 per cent annually ndthere had to be an investment of US$3.4 billion a year to keep up its production." “But since Chavez has become president there has been no investment.” On 18 September 2006 Venezuela's President
Hugo Chávez Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (; ; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician, Bolivarian Revolution, revolutionary, and Officer (armed forces), military officer who served as the 52nd president of Venezuela from 1999 until De ...
and Iran's President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (born Mahmoud Sabbaghian on 28 October 1956) is an Iranian Iranian principlists, principlist and Iranian nationalism, nationalist politician who served as the sixth president of Iran from 2005 to 2013. He is currently a mem ...
inaugurated a joint oil drilling operation with PDVSA and Iran's Petropars in San Tomé. By 2018 the political and economic troubles facing Venezuela had engulfed the El Tigre-San Tomé region. Oil workers fled the state-owned oil company when their salaries could not keep up with
hyperinflation In economics, hyperinflation is a very high and typically accelerating inflation. It quickly erodes the real versus nominal value (economics), real value of the local currency, as the prices of all goods increase. This causes people to minimiz ...
, reducing families to starvation. Workers and criminals stripped vital oil industry equipment of anything of valuable, ranging from pickup trucks to the copper wire of critical oil production components. Oil facilities were neglected and unprotected, leading to diminishing oil production and environmental damage.


Anzoátegui campus of UNEFA

The Anzoátegui campus of "La Universidad Nacional Experimental Politécnica de la Fuerza Armada Bolivariana" ( The National Experimental Polytechnical University of the Bolivarian Armed Forces) (UNEFA) is located at San Tomé. The campus, one of 61 of the national system and which is located just south of South Camp, offers a free education in a variety of career options.
Universidad Nacional Experimental Politécnica de la Fuerza Armada Bolivariana
/ref> Founded in 2002, UNEFA Anzoátegui has a student body of 1500 students.


Notable people

* Andrew Divoff (1955–), American actor and producer. * Juan Chacín Guzmán, president of Petroleos de Venezuela *
Jaime Lusinchi Jaime Ramón Lusinchi (27 May 1924 – 21 May 2014) was the president of Venezuela from 1984 to 1989. His term was characterized by an economic crisis, growth of the external debt, populist policies, currency depreciation, inflation and corrupt ...
, a medical doctor at the San Tomé hospital around 1949 and who became president of Venezuela (1984-1989). *
Mariem Velazco Mariem Claret Velazco García is a Venezuelans, Venezuelan beauty pageant titleholder who won Miss International 2018 in Tokyo, Japan. Pageantry Miss Venezuela 2017 Velazco stands at 177 centimeters and competed as Barinas (state), Miss Barina ...
, a beauty queen crowned
Miss International 2018 Miss International 2018 was the 58th edition of the Miss International pageant, held at the Tokyo Dome City Hall in Tokyo, Japan, on 9 November 2018. Kevin Lilliana, Kevin Lilliana Junaedy of Indonesia crowned Mariem Velazco of Venezuela as her ...
became the eighth Venezuelan to win the title. * Edward B. Walker III, became the president and chief operating officer for Gulf Oil Corporation.


See also

* Carabobo Field * Anaco, Venezuela * Chimire, Venezuela


Bibliography

* H. D. Hedberg, L.C. Sass, H.J. Funkhouser (1947). ''Oil Fields of Greater Oficina Area Central Anzoategui, Venezuela''. AAPG Bulletin. 31 (12): 2089–2169. * E. B. Brossard (1993). ''Petroleum research and Venezuela's INTEVEP: The Clash of the Giants''. PennWell Books/INTEVEP, 211 pp. .


References


External links


Early history of San Tomé
on ex-patriots website www.santome.org by archive.org (access date 15 June 2019).
San Tomé Overflight
YouTube video of a helicopter overflight of San Tomé obtained by Jake Howland in the late 1950s.
The Venezuela Oil Patch
YouTube video of oil field operations and the start of a new oil well near San Tomé by Jake Howland in the late 1950s.
OpenStreetMap - San Tomé/El Tigre

Google Maps - San Tomé

UNEFA Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:San Tome, Venezuela Populated places in Anzoátegui