Some more resources...

A couple other resources I used:

http://www.beg.utexas.edu/energyecon/new-era/case_studies/Apertura_in_Venezuela.pdf

The Economics, Culture, and Politics of Oil in Venezuela | venezuelanalysis.com

Orinoco Belt on Development

Here we can find an initial forecast of the production capacity of the Carabobo and the Junin areas of the Orinico Belt. These areas are being developed by PDVSA in the company of various international companies.

Here's a link to the site where the original article can be found: http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/02/11/venezuela-carabobo-idUSN1123338520100211

FACTBOX: Venezuela development plan for Orinoco oil belt

Venezuela has launched a massive plan to develop the nation's vast Orinoco heavy crude oil belt, considered one of the largest in the world, that is slated to add 2.1 million barrels per day of new production.

The OPEC nation on Wednesday awarded stakes to private companies in two oil projects in the Carabobo area of the Orinoco belt. It has also granted four projects to partners in the Junin area.

The projects operated by state oil company PDVSA are mostly set to begin producing tar-like Orinoco oil by 2013, with total investment of $80 billion. Upgraders to turn that crude into lighter synthetic oil will be ready several years later.

Chavez Responds to U.S. Sanctions

Here we can find an article from the Oil and Gas Journal on the responses of some Venezuelan political leaders to the recent U.S. sanctions after the Bolivarian Goverment supporting actions for Iran:

Irked by sanctions, Chavez threatens to curb oil sales to US

May 25, 2011

Eric Watkins
OGJ Oil Diplomacy Editor



LOS ANGELES, May 25 -- Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, irked by new sanctions imposed by Washington on state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA, said the firm may not be able to guarantee all future shipments of oil to the US.

“The true impact of this new gringo aggression will be to strengthen the nationalist and patriotic morale of Venezuela,” said Chavez who has often threatened to cut off supplies of his country’s oil to the US.

Chavez’s remarks came after the US yesterday imposed economic sanctions on PDVSA and six other foreign companies for working with Iran’s energy industry in ways that might bolster the country’s illicit nuclear program (OGJ Online, May 25, 2011).

A growing Mirage?

Since Chavez's Nationalization of the Venezuelan Oil Industry for the securization of fuding to his sovereign developing projects, increasing default risk had become a major concern for many of the investors of PDVSA.

Here we can find an opinion article from the online version of "The Economist"; The author offers us not a shining forecast for the years to come in the Venezuelan State.

http://www.economist.com/node/18233412

Research Resources

Here we can some links to the different research papers which I may like to address in the final paper/presentation

http://www.iadb.org/res/publications/pubfiles/pubWP-534.pdf

http://www.indiana.edu/~spea/pubs/undergrad-honors/honors_vol.2_no.7.pdf

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2005/wp05237.pdf

http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/etext/llilas/vrp/coronil.pdf

http://www.feem-web.it/ess/ess07/files/bulte6_ln.pdf

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/ross/paper.pdf

http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/venezuela_update_2008_02.pdf

http://ideas.repec.org/a/ecj/econjl/v94y1984i373p41-55.html

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2005/01/pdf/chapter4.pdf

Resource: "Sowing the Petroleum"

This is an article I found in my research of Juan Pablo Perez Alfonso, the self-proclaimed "oil guru" of Venezuela. It provides a ton of helpful and interesting information not only on Perez Alfonso, but also about Venezuela's abundance of oil and its effect on the country's democratic processes.

Click here to read

At the end of the article, you'll find a link titled "The Marginal Man". This article has less emphasis on the Venezuelan oil industry but is still pretty interesting.

OIl Market Report

In the link below we can find some useful charts for the upcoming presentation:

http://omrpublic.iea.org/countryresults.asp?country=Venezuela&Submit2=Submit