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Petroleos de Venezuela and a group of Russian oil companies plan to spend $30 billion on a joint venture in Venezuela’s Orinoco region, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said Friday in St. Petersburg.
The 40-year venture will seek to produce crude in the Junin 6 area and may expand to other Orinoco blocks, Sechin said after meeting with Venezuelan Vice President Ramon Carrizalez. Russian investors will include , , , TNK-BP and .
The venture will be signed “in the coming months,” Sechin said.
Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Hugo Chavez are expected to sign an agreement to create a bank to fund projects during Chavez’s visit to Russia in September, Carrizalez told reporters. Russian and Venezuelan officials signed accords today covering energy, education, tourism, environment and drug enforcement cooperation.
PDVSA-Servicios, the state oil company’s oilfield services subsidiary, and Gazprom’s Latin American division agreed last month to form a venture to operate drilling rigs and gas compression equipment. Venezuela has reached out to Russia in an attempt to obtain financing and reduce dependency on the United States, the country’s main trading partner.
Gazprom will use its Gazprombank unit to lend $4 billion to Venezuela starting at the end of August, Boris Ivanov, chief executive of Gazprom EP International, told Chavez last month. The loan will be collateralized by Venezuelan exports, he said.
Five Russian oil companies last year formed a company known as Consorcio Ruso to pursue joint ventures in the South American country.
Chavez said last week he was prepared to buy dozens of Russian tanks to counter the U.S. intention to increase a military presence in Colombia.
“The president of Venezuela is one of the leading international policy makers. He is a very strong personality and a great friend of Russia,” Sechin said. “I know from experience if he said something he will definitely do it,” he said.
Sechin said military cooperation with Venezuela will help Russia’s struggling military industrial complex cope with the economic crisis but declined to comment further on the tank deal saying it was for presidents to work it out.
Colombia’s government is expected to sign a deal this month giving U.S. forces increased access to military bases in order to fight the cocaine trade and Marxist insurgents. Chavez has blasted the plan as a threat to regional stability.
n Mexican President Felipe Calderon said regional leaders should be just as concerned about Russian naval operations in the region as they are with U.S. military activity.
Calderon’s comments today came in response to a question about the possibility of Colombia allowing the U.S. military to use as many as seven bases in the country for anti-drug operations.
“It’s important to have consistency,” Calderon said. He urged the region to “regard U.S. military maneuvers in a country with the same concern as naval maneuvers with the Russians in another country in the region.”
(Bloomberg, Reuters)
