NABEP Restarts Key Orinoco Belt Furnace in Continued Production Push
CARACAS, Venezuela, Nov. 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) has restarted a key furnace at its Zuata 2 (Petrocedeño) facility in the Orinoco Belt after five years, a step the company expects to add 8,000 to 10,000 barrels of oil per day within the next few weeks. Over a full year, that's between 2.92 million and 3.65 million barrels of crude, worth hundreds of millions of dollars at today's prices, from a single furnace.
The furnace, which feeds one of the facility's main processing lines, heats the extra-heavy crude produced at Zuata 2 to the temperatures needed for the next stages of processing. The crude comes out of the ground mixed with water. Heating it allows the two to be separated. That is an important step toward bringing the oil to the standard it must meet before it can be sold - no more than 2% water.
NABEP completed repairs, technical inspections and mechanical testing before restarting the furnace on October 31. The processing line can handle about 210,000 barrels a day, giving Zuata 2 room to grow.
"Capacity that sat idle for years is working for Venezuela again thanks to our team in the east," said NABEP CEO Alejandro Betancourt. "Two years ago, our company produced about 18,000 barrels a day. This furnace can help us add about half that amount to our overall production. Upgrades like this accelerate our growth and will put many Venezuelans back to work."
The restart builds on NABEP's October 31 update, which announced that its rig fleet will grow to 41 rigs this month. NABEP's total production reached 223,509 barrels of oil equivalent per day on October 19, up from about 200,000 in August, when NABEP signed its agreement with the U.S. Departments of State and War to significantly expand oil production in Venezuela. The first million barrels of oil linked to that agreement arrived in Corpus Christi, Texas, on October 27.
NABEP controls the rights to commercialize more than 65 billion barrels of P1 oil reserves in Venezuela. Its goal is to produce more than 1 million barrels of oil per day, with a milestone of 500,000 barrels per day by the end of 2028. The company employs 5,000 people and supports 10,000 contract employees in Venezuela. In two years, it has scaled production from approximately 18,000 barrels per day to more than 200,000, funded by roughly $1 billion of its own investment.
About North American Blue Energy Partners
North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) is an independent oil exploration and production company operating in North and Latin America, with offices in Caracas, Maracaibo and Lechería. NABEP is committed to the responsible development of energy resources, the safety of its people and the prosperity of the communities where it operates. www.nabep.net
Media contact: press@nabep.com
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