petroleumworld

PDVSA's Carabobo final terms to potential bidders expected this week

CARACAS
Petroleumworld.com, Nov 18, 2009

The venezuelan orinoco belt Carabobo oil project final tender terms were not received by the pre-selected bidders last Thursday as schedule but are expected this week a source from one of the bidders said.

PDVSA was to present the final terms of the project to potential bidders on Thursday, but that process has now been delayed until next week, the sources said.

The Orinoco belt heavy oil Carabobo project, auction is now plan to be taken place in January, sources said.

As a suggestions by the 18 companies participating and the world economic situation, PDVSA has been recently making changes in the terms of the tender by reducing the royalty rate and extending the timeline for production from the project.

Reuters reported Friday that one of their sources said he was expecting the new terms document to be presented by PDVSA "Tuesday or Wednesday" of next week.

At least five consortiums of international oil companies are set to bid on Carabobo project, according to media reports.

* China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) will partner with the French Total.

* CNPC will also bid separately with Sinopec, another Chinese company.

* Chevron , will partner with three Japonese companies and the Venezuelan Suelopetrol, Reuters reported.

* Spain's Repsol will likely partner with Malaysia's Petronas and India's ONGC.

* The Portuguese Galp Energia might bid with Norway's Statoil and Petrobras.

* BP, is still interested but might bid alone as Shell,who told Petroleumworld last week that it might bid solo.

* Participation of the Russian consortium of 5 Russian companies is not clear due the commitments it has made to develop other areas of the Orinoco, however, Lukoil said is still very interested.

The heavy crude project require an investment of around $120 billion dollars and will boost national production by 40 percent from 3.04 million bpd to 4.25 million barrels per day by 2015.

Copyright© 2008 respective author or news agency. All rights reserved.

We welcome the use of Petroleumworld™ stories by anyone provided it mentions Petroleumworld.com as the source. Other stories you have to get authorization by its authors.

Petroleumworld welcomes your feedback and comments,
share your thoughts on this article, your feedback is important to us!

We invite all our readers to share with us
their views and comments about this article.

By using this link, you agree to allow PW
to publish your comments on our letters page.

Best Viewed with IE 5.01+
Windows NT 4.0, '95, '98,ME,XP, Vista +/ 800x600 pixels