As part of the Gas Socialist Revolution, the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, announced the creation of two large projects: the National Gasification Plan and the Community Gas Bottles Project. The latter foresees building nine Community Filling Plants of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Bottles (LPG), which will guarantee constant supply and personalized delivery of household gas bottles.

In this sense, Petroleos de Venezuela is making progress regarding a plan to achieve mass use of gas bottles as a primary source of energy. This mass use of gas bottles will improve the quality of life of Venezuelans living in distant villages that have complex topography that makes difficult installing direct gas pipeline systems.

The plants will be located in the following states: Cojedes, Yaracuy, Miranda, Barinas, Bolivar, Apure, Delta Amacuro, Sucre and Guarico. These are strategic locations that will allow extending the benefits of this project to several areas of the country so that they can get safe, constant and reliable energy. The first plant is located in the Rojas de Santa Rosa Municipality, Barinas state. This plant will have a 2,520-bottle capacity per work shift, and its operation range will cover approximately 80 kilometers.

According to Jose Lopez, Superintendent for Management Planning and Control of the National Gasification Management Department, the construction of the Gas Bottle Filling Plant has several stages: receiving gas bottles, washing them, and painting them if necessary, by moving them using carousels, then filling the bottles, weighting them, and checking for leaks.

The organized community will be in charge of the distribution and commercialization of gas bottles. Community Councils, Social Production Companies (EPS by its initials in Spanish), and cooperatives, along with PDVSA, will be responsible for operating and maintaining these plants and making sure the following requirements of the commercialization process are carried out:
1) Handling primary transportation to move gas from PDVSA’s distribution plants to the community plants.
2) Filling gas bottles following world regulations regarding safety, environmental and health policies, and
3) Directly distributing gas bottles to each household.

Project Progress
The Santa Rosa Filling Plant in Barinas state has hired a total of 80 workers to carry out construction works. 65% of this construction has been completed. Similarly, 300 barrels per day of methane gas will be processed to benefit approximately 55 thousand families every month.

This physical progress includes fuel storing systems, which have two storing tanks of 30 thousand gallons each, a filling system or container, tank trucks that will transport the required LPG from the distribution point to the Plant, a freight elevator that will remove the pallets that contain the gas bottles, and the gas bottle filling train.

Benefits for communities and the environment
There are many rural villages that still use biomass or firewood to cook, which greatly damages their health. In fact, some studies and research have determined that if someone is in direct contact with the smoke that results from burning the firewood for ten years in a row, this person can suffer permanent damage to his respiratory system.

Similarly, this practice brings about ecological damages such as indiscriminate deforestation and serious damages to spring waters. This affects rivers, green areas, and national reserves.

For this reason and to mitigate health and environmental consequences, this project, fundamentally social, will reach those villages that for years and years have needed this energy resource.

This community project corrects shortcomings in the transportation and distribution of gas bottles caused by the capitalist way of offering a public service previously controlled by individual interests. This model made the delivery of gas bottles inconsistent, and in several cases precluded people from enjoying the gas service or compelled them to buy gas bottles at excessive prices using intermediaries.

Now the organized people have filling plants and can take control over the situation. The benefits will come to each household through direct distribution trucks.