Venezuela, India sign joint venture in oil-gas-rich Orinoco
VENEZUELA: Venezuela and India on Tuesday signed a five-year,
400-million-dollar joint venture to drill for oil and gas in Venezuela's
oil-rich southeastern Orinoco region, Oil and Energy Minister Rafael
Ramirez said.
"It's the first association agreement between the two countries,"
Ramirez said after signing the agreement with his Indian counterpart
Murli Deora, the first energy minister from India to visit Venezuela.
The joint venture brings together Venezuela's state-owned oil company
PDVSA and India's ONGC Videsh Ltd., a subidiary of India's top oil
company Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC).
With PDVSA controlling a 60 percent stake of the venture and ONGC
Videsh Ltd. 40 percent, the two companies will explore the 160 square
kilometer (62 square miles) San Cristobal oil field in northern Orinoco,
a region the size of Croatia that is rich in heavy crude oil.
Over the next few years, the joint venture is likely to double
Orinoco's oil production from its current 30,000 barrels per day to
60,000, Ramirez told reporters at PDVSA heaquarters. Preliminary studies
by both companies also estimated the San Cristobal area can yield 7,476
cubic meters (264 million cubic feet) of natural gas.
India in 2006 increased its crude oil purchase to 50,000 barrels per
day, and its trade with Venezuela has grown from 60 million dollars per
year in 2004 to 138 million in 2005, and close to one billion in 2006,
mostly in oil sales, the Indian Embassy said.
Venezuela, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC), is Latin America's leading oil producer, with an
estimated 100 billion barrels of crude oil reserves.
Last year, the leftist government of President Hugo Chavez
nationalized the Orinoco oil fields, imposing a 60 percent share for
PDVSA in all joint ventures in the area, and compensating some foreign
oil companies for their lost interest.
Besides India, PDVSA is currently working with oil companies from
Russia, Iran, China and Latin American nations in exploiting the heavy
Orinoco crude, which is expensive to refine.
When fully tapped, Orinoco's estimated 270 billion dollars of crude
oil reserves would make Venezuela at the world's top oil producer,
beating current leader Saudi Arabia. Caracas, Tuesday, AFP |