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Venezuelan Oil Ministry drafting Orinoco's Carabobo block business plan: official
By Carlos Camacho
Platts
BEIJING
Petroleumworld.com 06 29 07
Venezuela is moving forward to "the next step" with its Carabobo project
in the Orinoco region by devising a business plan to develop it now that
reserves have been certified, an official with state oil company PDVSA said
Thursday."Our work in [certifying the] Carabobo is now done; now I understand that
the Energy and Oil Ministry is moving forward with the next step, drawing up a
business plan for each block, whether they will go at it solo or with a
partner," said one PDVSA official who had provided reserves certifier Ryder
Scott with the data used in certifying the 129 billion barrels of extra heavy
crude there.The PDVSA official also said that Brazil's state-controlled energy giant
Petrobras is the most likely partner in blocks Carabobo 1 and 2.PDVSA has said Petrobras will only have a stake in Carabobo 1, but
Presidents Hugo Chavez and Luiz Inacio Da Silva paid a highly
publicized visit to Carabobo 2 in 2006, at the beginning of the certification
process.A different, relatively small portion of the "Faja," as the Venezuelans
call the Orinoco Tar Belt, was recently nationalized, meaning, among other
things, that US oil majors ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips had their stake in
projects there taken away by PDVSA. Compensation is what they have to look
forward now, the Venezuelan government said.Currently, the Orinoco oil projects produce around 500,000 b/d, or
one-sixth of what Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez says is total Venezuelan output
of 3.1 million b/d. The latest Platts survey put Venezuelan production at
around 2.4 million b/d.PDVSA says the new Orinoco projects can be producing 800,000 b/d in three
years' time, which would require bringing production at Carabobo online by the
end of 2007 or early 2008, the official admitted.--Carlos Camacho, newsdesk@platts.com
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Platts 28 06 07
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