Punto Fijo was founded in the early 1940s, on the outskirts of two refinery operations established by Standard Oil and Shell during the 1940s.

The operation once refined around 1 million barrels per day, and all of these petroleum products were fuel for the local and regional economy.

The progressive development that Punto Fijo is facing currently has given incentive to local, municipal, state and national authorities to carry out public building works that the city needed years ago.

This includes the main bus station, repairs to public roads, and settlement of a new thermoelectricity energy plant "Josefa Camejo".

The majority of the scanty rain falls from August to December, but the city is the driest in South America outside the Arid Diagonal, receiving only around 180 millimetres or 7 inches of rainfall per year – only a third as much as semiarid Maracaibo and Riohacha.