Barrancabermeja

Barrancabermeja, officially Special, Port, Industrial, Tourist and Biodiverse District of Barrancabermeja, is a Colombian district located on the banks of the Magdalena River, in the western part of the department from Santander. It is the most important industrial city in the department of Santander, home to the largest oil refinery in the country and is the capital of the Province of Yariguíes. It is 114 km from Bucaramanga to the west. It is the largest city in the natural subregion of the so-called Magdalena Medio; headquarters of the Magdalena Medio Police, of the Autonomous Corporation of the Rio Grande de la Magdalena, of the Diocese of Barrancabermeja.

It limits to the north with the municipality of Puerto Wilches, to the south with the municipalities of Puerto Parra, Simacota and San Vicente de Chucurí, to the east with the municipality of San Vicente de Chucurí and Girón, and to the west with the Magdalena River and the municipality of Yondó, department of Antioquia.

Corregimientos

Barrancabermeja has six corregimientos:

• Correction The Centre
• The Fortune
• Opon Cienaga Regiment
• Meseta de San Rafael
• The Rim
• San Rafael de Chucuri

History

Discovery

Barrancabermeja was discovered by the expedition of the Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada on October 12, 1536, who came up the Magdalena River and found a hamlet called La Tora inhabited by the Yariguí Indians, descendants of the Caribs and governed by the Cacique Pipatón and his wife, Cacica Yarima, a place that the Spaniards baptized that same day as Barrancas Bermejas. The real name was Latocca, which means “place of the fortress overlooking the river”. The indigenous people of La Tora, descendants of the Caribs, were bellicose warriors, therefore it was logical that the area was a redoubt of fierce indigenous people, who put strangers in trouble for many years, the most famous being the cacique Pipatón, with whose name is known in various establishments in the municipality. La Tora was the most important port on the Río Grande de la Magdalena, as Rodrigo de Bastidas called it. It was a point where indigenous people from the Caribbean and Andean zones came together in order to hold fairs where different products were exchanged.

According to don Juan de Castellanos, in the place where Quesada and his companions arrived there was a hamlet of thirty thatched huts, surrounded by fields of corn, but empty, since the indigenous people fled in terror in the presence of visitors strangely dressed in helmets and with heavy cross swords.

The Mares Concession

Tropical Oil Company (TROCO) pioneered the history of oil exploitation in Colombia, taking over the De Mares Concession in 1917. But the events that led Tropical to build good part of the country's history began much earlier. Since long before 1536, the only people who showed great interest in the black gold that boiled in wells were the natives, who smeared it on themselves to reduce fatigue and give strength to their muscles and to waterproof their boats.

In 1905, when the rubber fever began in the country, masterfully recounted in the novel La Vorágine by José Eustasio Rivera, the idea of getting rich in this company led Colonel José Joaquín Bohórquez, a veteran of the War of a Thousand Days, to rediscover the same Infantas well. From there he took out some oil containers that he took to the businessman and geologist of French origin Roberto De Mares.

Only then did the Colombian state become interested in the matter. But De Mares found it very difficult to get capital partners to start the explorations. When the contract was about to be taken from him, the fortuitous event occurred that decided the future of ExxonMobil in Colombia.

On a ship in the Caribbean, De Mares noticed an American John Leonard's interest in investing in exploration in South America and told him about his concession. Back in his country, Leonard interested three of his compatriots: George Crawford, Joseph Trees and Michael Benedum. Together they founded in 1916 a company based in Wilmington, in the state of Delaware, which they named Tropical Oil Company. La Tropical or "Troco" as it would come to be known, was established in Colombia in 1917.

1926 marked the beginning of Colombia as an oil-exporting country when in July the tanker T.J. Williams transported for the first time 88,172 barrels of crude oil from the De Mares Concession, from Mamonal to the United States.

By the following year, Tropical's operations in Colombia made the country the third largest oil producer in Latin America after Mexico and Venezuela.

The Tropical Oil Company was dissolved and liquidated together with the reversal of the Mares Concession on August 25, 1951, passing its property assets to the nation.

Municipal Life

In 1919 a Pro-Municipality of Barrancabermeja Patriotic Board was installed to pressure the Santander Departmental Assembly for the ordinance that would approve the creation of the new municipality. The following were part of the Board: Honorio A. Campo as president, Víctor M. Camacho, Juan Pablo Jiménez, Eustorgio Reyes and others. A census of people and rooms was carried out, an estimate of the possible resources, of the premises that could be used for offices and of the different documents to prove that the corregimiento could fulfill the legal conditions to become a municipality. La Tropical collaborated in every way for this purpose; supplied the maps and cartography and financed trips to Bucaramanga.

In 1921, the president of the board went to Bucaramanga at the end of the year to pressure the governor of the department, Mr. José M. García Hernández, to present before the national government and the Assembly, the petition of the inhabitants of Barrancabermeja. The governorship, in turn, pressured the national government in January 1922 to have the corregimiento elevated to a municipality since a new law was necessary, since the conditions required by Law 71 of 1916 did not exist to constitute the new municipality.

The precursor act for the creation of the new municipality was Law 5 of January 27, 1922, presented by the coastal parliamentarians Diógenes Arrieta and Ulises Osorio, who had been in the oil port on the steamer Hercules, on its way to Bogotá, and there they found out about the situation and the wishes of the population.

The governor set by decree the date of April 26 for the protocolization of the creation of the municipality and appointed Messrs. Bautista Reyes, Edmundo Vilar and Rafael Campo for main mayor, first and second substitutes respectively. It is surprising how quickly the national and departmental governments acted and gave all the necessary approvals in a very short time to shape the new municipality. The transfer of the delegation to Barrancabermeja to carry out the official ceremony of creation of the municipality in that year of 1922 was tortuous since there was no direct communication with the port. The delegation was made up of the Governor, Mr. José María García Hernández, who was accompanied by deputies Manuel Serrano Blanco and Alejandro Galvis Galvis, along with Messrs. Manuel Enrique Puyana, Carlos J. Delgado, Alejandro Castillo Reyes, Roberto Carreño, Roberto Parra Franco, Alberto García Benítez and General Antonio Picón, accidental secretary of the governor. The delegation left Bucaramanga on mule and horse until it reached the port called Marta on the right bank of the Sogamoso River after crossing steep hills. From there they continued in canoes until they found the Magdalena River, aided by two gasoline launches from La Tropical. Thus, on April 25, they arrived in Barrancabermeja, where the company offered them rooms and food, which not everyone accepted due to the precautions that existed against the foreign company.

The following day, April 26, at the house of Mr. Bonifacio Jaramillo O., the governor and the commissions appointed by the Assembly and other entities met and proceeded to the official inauguration of the municipality and signed the corresponding act. Likewise, the appointments of the following authorities with their respective salaries were made public: Mayor, Mr. Bautista Reyes, with an allowance of 200 pesos; Mr. Honorio Campo, the witness in 1916 of the beginning of the works in the Concession, collector of departmental rents, with provisional functions of municipal treasurer, with a salary of 120 pesos and Mr. Ciro A. Lineros and Mr. Paulina Lineros for teachers of the urban school, with a salary of 100 pesos. After the ceremony, the procession moved to the Superintendence of Infants to a reception offered by the manager of the Tropical, Mr. Scott. In this way, the municipality of Barrancabermeja, the city of black and combative gold in Colombia, was born to life.

On August 2, 1922, the first Municipal Council met, elected in the elections of July 23, which dictated several agreements regarding the construction of the jail, the public slaughterhouse and the hospital, the cleaning system and other matters; and approved the first income and expense budget for the year 1923 for the sum of 10,090.02 pesos.

On June 13, 2019, the Congress of the Republic of Colombia declared the municipality of Barrancabermeja a Special Port, Industrial, Tourist and Biodiverse District.

Twinning Agreement with Houston, Texas

In March 2013, Mayor Elkin Bueno and Houston Mayor Annise Parker signed a twinning agreement that is expected to take advantage of technology and knowledge of what is considered the Oil Capital of Colombia.

Economy

Petrochemical

The petrochemical activity in the city is of great importance in the country, due to being the home of the largest oil refinery in Colombia that belongs to the state company ECOPETROL.

In this large industrial complex, approximately 252,000 barrels are refined per day, making Barrancabermeja a municipality with one of the best economies in the country.

Logistics and transport

Having a fluvial artery of great national relevance such as the Magdalena River, the city has an Impala multimodal port terminal which has diversified the economy and where cargo can be transported to different sectors of the country and even the world. dry and liquid

Road arteries

Climate

Average climatic parameters of Barrancabermeja, Santander, Colombia.
Month	Ene.	Feb.	Mar.	Open up.	May.	Jun.	Jul.	Ago.	Sep.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.	Annual
Temp. max. abs. (°C)	39.6	41.2	38.8	39.5	40	39	38.2	40.5	41	41.5	40	42.7	40.2
Average temperature (°C)	35.3	35.8	35.6	35.4	35.3	35.2	35.4	35.4	35	34.4	34.1	34.4	35.1
Average temperature (°C)	28.6	28.9	28.8	28.4	28.2	28.2	28.5	28.3	28	27.4	27.5	28.1	28.2
Temp. medium (°C)	21.2	21.1	21	21	21	21	20.8	20.5	20.3	20.6	20.9	21.3	20.9
Temp. min. abs. (°C)	17.8	17	16	16.5	16.1	16	16.5	16	16.7	16	16.8	16	16
Rains (mm)	51.9	96.6	149.8	263.6	330.2	256.9	185.3	254.8	314.7	393.5	300.7	102.4	2700.4
Days of rain (≥)	5	7	10	16	17	15	14	16	17	19	16	8	160
Hours of sun	222.8	167.8	152.2	142.9	167.9	171.7	215.8	205.4	181.2	165.8	164.4	195.8	2153.7
Relative humidity (%)	74	73	77	81	82	81	78	79	81	83	83	80	79.3
Source: Climate parameters IDEAM 22 December 2007

Education

The city has several public and private institutions, which include all levels, from pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, primary and secondary basic education, technical technology and university higher education.

In 2016, Barrancabermeja improved in the 11th Saber Tests, ranking number 11 at the national level and number 2 at the departmental level.

Tourism

Notable are the Petroleum Museum (via the town of El Centro), the San Silvestre Swamp, the Magdalena River, the Cristo Petrolero, the town of El Llanito, the Guillermo Gaviria Correa Bridge (Barrancabermeja-Yondó Bridge) that connects the departments Santander and Antioquia, the city's refinery, among others. The industrial complex can be visited by local and national educational institutions through a formal written request, thanks to an agreement between Ecopetrol and the Ministry of National Education.

Places of Interest

• La Barrancabermeja Refinery: The most important of the Colombian territory, where 95% of the fuels supplying the national demand, among other petroleum products, are produced. For security reasons, their access is restricted and business or educational visits are limited to certain areas of the infrastructure.

• The Christ Petroleum: This structure is located in the artificial swamp Miramar, in front of a malecon. The city's tourist information center works in the backyard.

The Petroleum Christ, a structure located in the Miramar swamp. At the bottom you can appreciate part of the Barrancabermeja Refinery

• Museum of Oil Samuel Schneider Uribe: Located in the El Centro Corridor, 10 minutes from the urban center. There you can appreciate everything related to the history of oil extraction in the Middle Magdalena lands, from the 1920s to the present day.

• Paseo Yuma: On the Avenue of the Founders on the separator are the monuments of the master Lombana, who with his own hands made the history of the fauna and flora of Barrancabermeja represented in pumas, iguanas, herons, turtles, chigüiros and ends in the runway of the Cacique Pipatón and the princess Yarima.

• Infants Club: It has swimming pools, dance floor, tavern, lounges, restaurants, sportsman, skateboard, tennis courts, bolo, weaving, soccer and volleyball-playa, pool area, children's games, Olympic pool, semi-olympic, slides, gym and cinema on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays in hour

• Campestre Headquarters of the Miramar Club: 20 minutes from Barrancabermeja, it has parachuting, water and children's games, boat rides and food.

• Recreational Center Cafaba (Family compensation box of Barrancabermeja): Located 10 minutes from the city, on the side of the road leading to the El Llanito Corridor. It has water activities, sports, restaurant service and space for family walks.

• Our Lady of Carmen: Church located in the Palmira neighborhood that has an oil drilling tower as a bell tower, unique in its genre.

• The Park of Life: It is the most important public site in the city, located in a sector of the city where the Municipal Cemetery works. It has children's games in regular conditions. Nearby are bars, restaurants, ice-cream shops and nightclubs.

• Paseo de la Cultura: It is located on Avenue 60 of the city. In it you can observe three temples with alusive names to great compositions of the music of wind or "Papayera", an allusive statue to "La Pollera Colorá", musical air in rhythm of cumbia that was created in Bermejas lands, you can appreciate the "Olympic Call" that was built during the world of skating that was held in 1996 in the city. It has a grecorromean style with 3 temples in which the cultures of the adolescence of Barrancabermeja (artists) are integrated

• The Patinodrome: It has been a sporting stage in the years 1996 and 2000 of the world’s speed skating and in the 2008 stage of the 9th American Skating Cup.

• Puente Barrancabermeja-Yondo: Located a few kilometres north of the city, it communicates the departments of Santander and Antioquia. His inauguration was made in 2006 bearing the name of Guillermo Gaviria Correa, who was the governor of the antioquia.

• Centro Comercial San Silvestre: with Jumbo as an anchor store, 132 commercial venues, games venue, meal runner, event runner, casino, gym and cinema.

• Iwana Shopping Centre: its anchor store is Èxito, 113 commercial venues, games venue, chariots, food schedule and cinema.

• The Popular Commercial Center (CPC): The first shopping center created in the city was opened on July 18, 2008. With more than 500 locals, it has become a meeting point for the Barmeja citizenship and its location makes it epicenter of constant playful, recreational and cultural events.

• Estadio Daniel Villa Zapata: The maximum sports scene of the city, made for soccer practice, with capacity for 10,400 spectators. He was subjected to a reconstruction from 2011 to 2015 to receive the football team matches of this city; the Petrolera Alliance, which competes in the First Division of Colombian football.

• Colosseum Luis Fernando Castellanos: Another important sports scene of the city, formerly called Youth Colosseum, headquarters of the Women’s World Cup 2013 and headquarters of the former football team or micro football Barrancabermeja Future City, which competed in the Professional League of Microfutbol Colombia between 2012 and 2015. In the second semester of 2014 was the headquarters of the professional basketball team of Santander (called at the time Barrancabermeja Future City as their pair in the microphone), which competes in the National Basketball Leaders League.

The Río Grande de la Magdalena Festival stands out as cultural heritage of the city, considered the third most important Vallenato music festival in Colombia after the Festival of the Vallenata Legend of Valledupar and the Festival Cradle of Accordions of Villanueva (La Guajira). This festival was declared Cultural and Artistic Heritage of the Nation through Law 1007 of 2006 of the Congress of the Republic, choosing the best accordion performers in the four (4) airs or vallenato rhythms (Merengue, Paseo, Son and puja). This contest has been held every year since 1983, between the months of October and November in various places in the city. Just like its counterparts in Valledupar and Villanueva, the Rio Grande de la Magdalena Festival also holds, every 11 years since 1992, the King of Kings tournament, with only the winners participating. of the festival in previous years.

Media

In the district of Barrancabermeja, practically all telecommunications services are available, including mobile phone networks, wireless broadband networks, navigation centers or internet cafes, IP communication, etc.

There are several mobile phone operators, all with national coverage and GSM technology, Claro Colombia (from América Móvil); Movistar (of Telefónica), and Tigo (of ETB, EPM Telecomunicaciones and Millicom International of Luxembourg).

The district has several free-to-air television channels: 2 local channels; Telepetróleo and Enlace Televisión, the regional channel Canal TRO and the five national channels: the 3 public Canal Uno, Canal Institucional and Señal Colombia and the 2 private Caracol and RCN.

Cable television service is provided by DirecTV, Tigo UNE, Claro TV and Movistar TV. In addition, several companies offer parabolic television service such as: Paracolombia, Paracentral, E&C Pluss, Pararosario, Anpsocc, Tevecol and TV Norte Comunicaciones.

The locality of the city has a variety of AM and FM stations, both with local coverage in the district, as well as departmental and national coverage, of which 4 are FM and 2 are in AM.

Two important newspapers circulate in Barrancabermeja and in the rest of Santander: Vanguardia Liberal and Periódico Q'hubo, both with a long trajectory in the regional sphere. The newspapers El Tiempo and El Espectador, among others, also circulate.

Public services

Electrical energy

The Electrificadora de Santander S.A. (ESSA), acquired by the company EPM, is in charge of providing the service in the city of Barrancabermeja. In the city, 98.9% of homes have energy service.

Natural Gas

The city of Barrancabermeja is supplied with gas service from the Barrancabermeja district itself, an 8-inch pipeline that began operations in 1996. It transports approximately 20 million cubic feet of gas per day. 89.6 of the homes in the city have natural gas service. The company in charge of providing the service to the Barranqueños is Gas Natural Del Oriente S.A. E.S.P. Gas Natural Fenosa (Gasoriente S.A.), who bought the old gas supplier company in the city Gases De Barrancabermeja.

Aqueduct and Sewerage

The Barrancabermeja aqueduct is provided by Aguas De Barrancabermeja. E.S.P. It is responsible for the aqueduct and sewage service. This company supplies the city from the Ciénaga San Silvestre. 95.6% of the city has the aqueduct service and 75.2% with the sewage service.

Illustrious people