By Prensa Latina
Caracas : Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) and the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation Service and Engineering LTD agreed Saturday to create a joint venture for oil operations and services, said PDVSA.
A note by PDVSA said the new joint venture will strengthen the Venezuelan operations by means of using Chinese personnel and technology, to consolidate the formers sovereignty in energy.
The communique added the new joint venture should handle 30 percent of oil activities in Venezuela, which is committed to increasing crude oil supply for China up to a million barrels a day, before 2010.
Luis Vierma, PDVSA vice president of Exploration and Production, said that the new enterprise will put the technology and training of China at the disposal of Venezuela to discover new wells to support the supply.
Vierma said that the government of Venezuela, which wants to make more international partners, should stop looking to the north, and widen its relations with farther countries like China, a country with which it has exploitation agreements in the Orinoco oil strip. nm/tac/iep/mf