Curaçao: life with an oil refinery

Abstract

Have you ever realized that Curaçao was discovered in 1499, but was in a way rediscovered in 1915? - that as of that year Curaçao experienced its greatest metamorphosis ever? - that the former agrarian society has all but disappeared? - that size and composition of its population have strongly changed? - that new neighborhoods were created? - that a highway system was developed? - that social life, religion and culture have changed? All those changes are due to the arrival of the oil refinery. Now, more than 100 years later, we can't ignore it: we are living, residing, working, practising sports, dining, relaxing with and around the refinery. This photo book illustrates this in pictures and words. The words tell the stories that the pictures can't show anymore. Shell children reminiscing about living in the oil villages; stories of former Shell end PdVSA people bringing the past to life, and stories explaining why things are as they are now, and why things work on Curaçao the way they do. More than a century of oil on the island is visible in all sections of the community, and thus in the people working for the refinery; from grandfather to son to grandson. Since the advent of the refinery on the island they have earned their daily bread there.