Venezuela Needs Foreign Oil Producers Immediately

Venezuela soon plans to negotiate with foreign energy companies.
The aim of Venezuela is to start new exploration and production partnerships in massive Orinoco extra heavy oil fields.

Venezuelan Vice Energy Minister Luis Vierma supposes, that soon they will have a presentation for companies that want to participate to explain the methodology.

Foreign companies are currently pumping extra heavy crude from the Orinoco in three synthetic crude upgrading joint ventures with state oil firm PDVSA, and a fourth upgraded project is under construction.

Crude from the Orinoco, one of the world's biggest hydrocarbons deposits, is too heavy for normal refineries to run, so it must be mixed with lighter crude or upgraded into synthetic oil for processing.

The vice minister said Venezuela hoped to start talks with foreign firms quickly so projects could be completed in the next five to six years.

Venezuela's three operating Orinoco projects -- Sincor, Cerro Negro, and Petrozuata -- are currently pumping over 400,000 bpd of synthetic crude. A fourth project, Ameriven, which will be completed this year, is producing around 160,000 bpd of extra heavy oil blended with lighter crude.

Companies partnered with PDVSA in the syncrude projects include U.S. majors ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, Norway's Statoil , and French Total .