Headed by Alexey Miller, Gazprom’s Management Committee Chairman, Gazprom’s delegation today completed its visit to Venezuela.

In the course of the visit, Alexey Miller met with Hugo Chavez, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The parties pointed out that Venezuela was interested in using Gazprom’s experience in the oil and gas sector, to be possibly applied in projects on natural gas production in Venezuela and gas deliveries to Central and South America. The global petroleum market development issue was addressed, as well.

At the same time, the meeting debated potential deepening of cooperation between Gazprom and the Venezuelan state-run oil and gas firm Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA). The companies will look into the outlook of cooperation in joint fuel and power projects, primarily, in regards to Venezuela’s oil and gas field exploration & development, existing processing capacity modernization and oil & gas pipeline designing, construction and operation. In addition, the parties intend to develop new technologies with the view of boosting gas and oil productivity at the fields under operation.

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Being the second-largest in the Western Hemisphere after the USA, Venezuela’s proved natural gas reserves account for 4.1 tcm. In 2003, Venezuela extracted 29.7 bcm of natural gas. The country does not import or export gas and the entire gas amount produced is channeled to domestic consumers. Natural gas, oil and hydropower generation shares in Venezuela’s fuel and power balance stand for 41%, 38% and 21%, respectively. Total length of the country’s gas pipelines accounts for 5 thousand km.

Venezuela’s proved oil reserves amount to 11.2 bln t (7% of the global reserves), with Maracaibo, Falcon, Oriental and Apure being the largest oil fields. Over 2003, Venezuela recovered 153 mln t, consumed 24 mln t and exported over 100 mln t of oil. The USA is the major importer of Venezuelan oil.

Although the exclusive right to produce natural gas is being held by the Venezuelan state-run oil and gas firm Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), a limited number of joint ventures set up by PDVSA and foreign investors have been licensed to do it, as well.

In 1999, the Venezuelan Government enacted the Gas Law stipulating the inflow of foreign investments into the domestic gas industry.

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