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Venezuela launches joint venture to develop offshore gas fields(EFE Ingles Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Caracas, Mar 7 (EFE).- Venezuelan state energy company PDVSA announced the signing of a multi-billion-dollar joint venture with Portuguese, Argentine, U.S. and Japanese firms to develop massive offshore natural gas fields. The venture, in which PDVSA will have a majority stake, will design, build and operate two liquefaction plants at the Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho gas industrial complex in the northeastern state of Sucre, as well as pipelines to transport the fuel to those facilities. The plants at Gran Mariscal, which PDVSA says will "be the most important gas industrial complex in Latin America," will process 28.8 trillion cubic feet of gas extracted from the offshore Deltana platform and the Mariscal Sucre project in the Paria Gulf. The partners in the joint venture are PDVSA, with a 60 percent stake in both plants; Portugal's Galp Energia; U.S. company Chevron Global Technology Services; Japan's Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsui & Co. Ltd. and Itochu Corporation; and Argentina's Energia Argentina. A total of $6.4 billion will be invested in the first liquefaction plant, which will have an annual capacity of 4.7 million tons of liquefied natural gas, while the second will require an investment of $5.2 billion and also have a 4.7-million-ton capacity. Both amounts include extraction and pumping installations for developing the fields, with commercial production set to begin in 2014 for markets in South America, Europe, the Caribbean and Asia, PDVSA said in a statement Friday. Total investment in the so-called Delta Caribe Oriental Project is expected to be $19.6 billion, including the development of the offshore Blanquilla and Tortuga fields and a third liquefaction plant, the company said. The joint venture is part of a strategy by leftist President Hugo Chavez's government to boost natural gas output from 6.3 billion cubic feet per day in 2007 to 11.5 billion cfd by 2012, PDVSA said. Venezuela has the world's eighth-largest natural gas reserves, estimated at 180 trillion cubic feet, and is the world's fifth-leading oil exporter. EFE gf/mc Copyright ? 2009 EFE News Services (U.S.) Inc. |