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Venezuela says joint oil project with Brazil to cost US$9 billion (€7 billion)
AP
CARACAS
Petroleumworld.com 15 11 06
Venezuela's state oil company said it could cost about US$9 billion (€7 billion) to develop newly established heavy crude deposits in its Orinoco River region.Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, and Brazil's Petrobras have been working to quantify tar-like crude deposits in the Orinoco, and Venezuela announced Monday that the Carabobo I block has successfully been certified as holding 45.5 billion barrels of oil. The results have been audited by U.S.-based oil consultancy Ryder Scott Company.
PDVSA believes about 7.6 billion barrels of that can be extracted profitably and refined into lighter, more marketable crudes as it is doing at four other heavy crude upgrading projects in the Orinoco.
PDVSA and Petrobras have yet to agree on a plan to develop the Carabobo I block, but the Venezuelan company estimates that it would cost about US$9 billion (€7.02 billion) to build an upgrading plant in the block and a conventional refinery in northern Brazil, PDVSA said in a statement posted on its Web site late Monday.
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On Tuesday, the tax agency billed Chevron Corp. US$4 million (€3.1 million) and ConocoPhillips US$7 million (€5.5 million) in taxes that it said the U.S. companies owed from 2002 and 2003 for their Hamaca heavy oil upgrading project.
AP 14 11 06
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