The Company | Zaramella & Pavan Company Construction (2024)

click on each of the years to read its contents

'2000s - A New Millennium

At the beginning of the new millennium, Z&P is modernized in avant-garde equipment and technologies, and as an organization. The decade is a more reliable company before the sudden changes in the dynamic global oil market. We have established strategic alliances with other companies to be more productive and efficient.

For the first time, and in alliance with the Venezuelan Modules Consortium, we won an international tender. Beyond 2000, Z&P expands workforces.

In our achievements we note the construction of 72 modules for the Saint Croix refinery (Virgin Islands), in partnership with Petrolago, Flag and Segema.

Another important strategic alliance was the one agreed with CONFURCA, for the installation of the mechanical facilities of the PIGAP II Project, in Monagas, the largest in the world in gas pressures.

To this is added the laying of lines and pipe lining for the LL-652 project of Chevron in the Lake. For activities such as this we apply the latest technology such as satellite positioning and the internal radiography of the pipes.

In this way, our company once again takes the first step in technological innovation, setting the tone among Venezuelan and Latin American companies.

'2010s - Strategic Times

This decade has been characterized in the Venezuelan oil industry by sudden changes such as decreased investment and selectivity of projects, which has made many companies look to other horizons in search of sustainability and diversification of operations.

Z & P opens a branch in Colombia, motivated by this movement in the execution of the Colombo Venezolano gas pipeline for PDVSA, this incentivized us to consolidate its internationalization strategy in the sister country. This led to several contracts such as Pozos Colorados, Santa Marta, Colombia, Detailed Engineering and Plem Submarino Construction in Tumaco for Ecopetrol. Similarly, we were awarded the project Construction, Testing and Start-up of the Required Facilities to Transport Natural Gas, from Campo La Creciente to Pacific Energy's Morrosquillo Gulf, a project that was canceled in the end.

In this decade, projects along the national geography taking place in Zulia State highlight the Increase in Plant Capacity and the Installation and Start-up of Plant 1-BUTENO, including the transportation, installation and interconnection of a modular plant Made in France, for POLINTER in the El Tablazo Petrochemical Complex, Zulia state.

'50s - The Beginning

Z&P was born from the idea of providing services in civil engineering and operational facilities to an industry that was developing with the growth of the global fuel trade. At that time began the economic recovery of Europe after the difficult years of the Second World War.

We inaugurated ourselves as a contractor of the oil companies through our construction line, we made roads and moved whole houses of block and concrete.

After a few years of apprenticeship and development, we took a decided step forward, also taking into account, since 1954, the work of mechanical and electrical constructions quickly became our priority. Hence, from the second half of that decade we began to build flow stations for Mene Grande, Texaco, Phillips, Shell, Creole and Signal among others.

Having the acceptance of the clients and having the opportunity to carry out important works allowed that in the internal level we started the organization of our facilities and increased the number of personnel. We built a provisional dock in Bachaquero to manufacture the foundations and structures of the flow stations that Shell planted in the lake to separate the crude from the gas. We also prepared our future headquarters in Las Morochas.

'60s - The Diversification

The first ten years we lived in a climate of political debate sponsored by the first steps of democracy, but also of great hope for the national oil industry, because only a year before, on the initiative of Rómulo Betancourt and Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso, Venezuela together with Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and Kuwait, founded the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Among those nations, our country had the highest production with 2,846,107 barrels per day and proven reserves in the order of 17,382 million barrels.

All this gives an idea of the moment of furor that lived the industry, which led us to diversify our operations to be a more complete company, ready to attract the largest number of customers that would enable us to reach the first places, as indeed it happened during that time.

At that time we acquired the first barge, the Josefa, an old barge that sold us the Mene Grande Oil Company, which we used to transport the materials and equipment to the lake. With it we carried out tank maintenance for the Mene Grande, the Texaco and the Phillips.

In the early sixties we opened the concrete coating plant. But it was not until 1965 when we made the great technological leap, when starting operations of the High Density Polyethylene Plant, because at that time, the operators were limited to cover with coal tar the pipes to protect them from corrosion.

Simultaneously we started with the laying of lines. We won the first job in this area outside of Zulia, the Urama-Puerto Cabello-Barquisimeto gas pipeline. We extended the Bachaquero-Puerto Miranda pipeline at the same time and began the manufacture of line barges, gas and water plants. We specialize in the laying of gas pipelines, pipelines and aqueducts.

We also participated in one of the most important projects of the time, the San Felipe-Morón gas pipeline, necessary to increase the production capacity of the Carabobo petrochemical complex during those years.

One of the most delicate operations of that time turned out to be the installation of the oil pipeline that goes from Rio Negro to Encontrados, which started in Catatumbo, where Shell had found oil producing wells. The difficulties were in laying the pipes without disturbing the indigenous communities of Bari and Yukpa, ancestral inhabitants of those lands.

In 1964, Z&P started the laying of lines in Lake Maracaibo with the barge Z&P-230, the founder of Z&P in these lines. The first order was made by the Mene Grande in lines of 2.4 and 6 inches.

They say that even at the beginning of that decade it was possible to travel without light between Lagunillas and Cabimas, protected in the wake of light that gave off the gas mechurrios. But in that same decade gas conservation becomes a priority in the Lake of Maracaibo and the construction of compressor and gas injection plants begins.

Z&P is involved in the construction of many of them: the reinjection of Lagogas I in 1962, Unigas I and II, Lagogas II, the Lamargas injection plant in 1967, the first in the world to use turbines to move the compressors.

'70s - Years of Decisions

The Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons only granted permits to transport and store liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and to build the corresponding facilities, from 1970, so immediately Creole submitted an offer to the government to build a plant Liquid gas.

Since then we participated in the construction of the LPG plant in Ulé and the erection of the towers of that facility, although really the most attention was concentrated around the then possible nationalization of the industry.

We act vigorously in the construction of operational facilities throughout the country, as well as in the modernization, adaptation and expansion of gas plants, of crude oil handling.

While the nationalization arrived, we spread oil pipelines, gas pipelines, and pipelines all over the national geography. We worked on the expansion of the gas plant TJ-2 and TJ-3, on the electrical system of Unigas II, the laying of the Guacara gas pipeline, on the construction of the Urama treated water plant, on the lime plant of El Tablazo, in the Puerto Cabello-Yagua pipeline, in the raising of towers of the Ulé plant, in the construction of the El Palito Refinery.

In addition, we expanded the liquefied gas system of Gas PC TJ-2 and TJ-3 in Lake Maracaibo, executed works in the electrical system of the Unigas II plant and built water injection plants for Creole.

'80s - Times of Challenges

The one that in opinion of Latin American economists and financial specialists was the lost decade for the subcontinent, was a time of challenges and progress for our company.

In the 1980s, the national oil industry began construction of portable compression modules instead of traditional integrated plants. Z&P built most of them in the country, including the INCO, Infragas, Ceuta projects.

But, in addition, they were years of modernization and technological adaptation. Z&P incorporates state-of-the-art technologies and modern equipment and manages to manufacture, install and start a gas plant close to a thousand tons in six months, when before it was possible to do in 15 and a flow station in four months, a new record for a company Venezuelan

On the other hand, we continue with our work of laying lines. We participated in the installation of the Guasdalito-La Victoria pipeline, and at the end of the decade we did it in the installation of a still young Orimulsion project.

The replacement, repair, redirection and relocation of lines on land and lake, was another of the most executed by Z&P.

To this is added the opening, in 1985, of the epoxy resin coating plant, so in just one year we reached the registration of coating 500 kilometers of 30 and 36 inch pipes with epoxy resin.

This company cooperated in the refurbishment of the Cardon and Amuay refineries, joining in this way the constant activity that took place in the refineries, due among other causes, to the change of refining pattern and the opening of new plants in the existing facilities.

'90 - Prepared for Changes

The nineties came with an air of change. The oil industry integrated its activities and became PDVSA for Venezuela and the world. Through strategic associations and operative agreements, the oil transnationals that operate again in the country were opened. And in Z&P the changes become new market opportunities that ratify our technological capacity, operational flexibility and leadership as an oil contractor.

In that decade, the East was considered the most attractive oil horizon in Venezuela. More than 60% of the oil reserves to be discovered are housed in the lands of Monagas, Anzoátegui and Bolívar. And we install part of our personnel, equipment, technologies and offices in that territory.

We move in two great fronts of work: the west and the east, covering, tending lines and building projects of great technological importance.

Z&P has intervened in all the large projects for the laying of lines in the lake. Having the largest fleet of barges with the capacity to install pipes of different weights and diameters, such as laying lines with epoxy resin for the processing of acid crude in Campo Boscan.

We counted only between 1990 and 1995, the coating of 36 million lines that is 11 thousand kilometers, which is equivalent to going from east to west in Venezuela about five and a half times.

We were also protagonists of the prefabrication of lines and mechanical works for the refrigeration area and fractionation plant in Jose, Anzoátegui state.

In Zulia we built facilities for the increase of natural gas liquids of the PC-TJ-3 plant. We also participated in the construction of the GLP5 plant and in the modernization of the instrumentation of the Ulpe GLP-1 plant.