Overflowing or overstating Orinoco Oil?...

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Venezuela's oil and gas bonanza is no secret but according to new figures updated and officially announced by the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum the proven oil reserves in traditional and offshore areas and crude oil from the Orinoco oil belt now total 296.5 billion barrels. Already the country with the largest reserves outside of the Middle East these new figures push it to the Number One spot in the world, over and above Saudi Arabia. (click on image to enlarge)

Of course it could all be hot air...speaking of which, in other Crusty news, Hugo has promised this weekend that [another] new social program called Mission Housing will build two million new dwellings in the next seven years; under at least two previous housing-related programs 284 thousand homes were built in 12 years; who's to say they won't succeed this time although [edit 7pm] the coincidence of the numbers doesn't bode well: they've built 284,000 in 12 years and now he's saying effectively that they're going to build that many every year for 7 years: maybe he meant 'housing' like THESE.