Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro awards 2 offshore gas field licenses to Russia’s Rosneft. The new agreements were signed on December 16, 2017, between Rosneft´s CEO Igor Sechin and PDVSA´s CEO Manuel Quevedo.
Rosneft will become the operator of Patao and Mejillones offshore gas fields in the Caribbean Sea.
For the next 30 years, Rosneft will have the right to sell all gas produced at the fields for exports, including in the form of LNG.
The total reserves of the 2 fields are estimated at 180 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas, the Russian company plans to extract 6.5 bcm of gas annually for the next 15 years.
Other agreements signed last Saturday are for a payment bonus between Rosneft and PDVSA, which are partners in 5 joint ventures: Petromonagas, Petromiranda, Boquerón, Petroperijá and Petrovictoria.
Igor Sechin has asserted in multiple media interviews that the oil company intends to continue working with PDVSA, steadily increasing levels of cooperation over time.
«As I repeated on several occasions, we will never leave; no one can expel us, we will work with Venezuela and we will increase the levels of our cooperation,» Sechin has said.
Venezuela has «the largest reserve of hydrocarbons in the world and, from that point of view, any oil company should aspire to work in this country.»
