State-owned Venezuelan company Petr?leos de Venezuela (PDVSA) is set to ink a long-term crude supply agreement with Reliance Industries (RIL). The decision was taken during a recent visit of Venezuelan foreign minister Nicolas Maduro for the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) meeting, organised by the ministry of external affairs.
An announcement by the Venezuelan government said: “PDVSA will sign an agreement with Reliance Industries to supply heavy crude oil that could reach 4,00,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the long term.” Sources told FE that LatAm and Caribbean nations are areas of interest for India to meet its energy needs. “We are looking very closely at the region where our oil imports have gone up to 9% of the total. Countries like Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela and Peru are of major interest to us,” they said. “In Venezuela, there are great opportunities in upstream and downstream for Indian companies. But the companies have to look at these opportunities in a strategic way, and whether they want to do it as joint ventures.”
At 2011-end, Venezuela sent to India 1,65,000 bpd of oil on an average and 1,000 bpd of oil byproducts. This represents a decrease of 18.6% compared to 204,000 bpd in 2010. The deal will help RIL meet its refining needs as it expands to reach a capacity of almost 6,00,000 bpd. In June, PDVSA announced an increase in delivery of 1,50,000 b/p of crude oil to Reliance.
Also, ONGC and PDVSA have created a joint venture called Petrolera IndoVenezolana to boost production from 30,000 bpd to 60,000 bpd at Venezuela’s San Cristobal field, which, PDVSA says, has reserves of 232 million barrel. While ONGC OVL has already invested $350 million, it intends to put in an additional $500 million in the San Cristobel oil field.
In addition, ONGC Videsh with an Indian consortium proposes to invest $2.2 billion in the Carobobo project. GAIL is keen on exploring opportunities in the natural gas value chain. BPCL is wants to explore opportunities to export base oil to Venezuela and its marketing. Engineers India (EIL) would like to provide its design and engineering services in the hydrocarbon sector.
