MOSCOW, September 14 (RIA Novosti) - Venezuela and a consortium of Russian oil companies intend to invest $20 billion into the development of the Junin 6 oil deposit in the Orinoco River Basin, the Venezuelan oil and energy minister said.
"We'll invest $20 billion in that block for upstream development, perforation and in an upgrader," Bloomberg quoted Rafael Ramirez as saying.
Ramirez added that the Russian companies have paid a bonus of $1 billion for participation in the development of the deposit that could produce 400,000-450,000 barrels of crude a day.
During last week's visit by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Moscow, his country's state oil and gas company PdVSA and the Russian consortium, NNK, signed a memorandum of understanding. They also agreed to establish a joint venture for work on the Junin 6 block.
NNK, or the National Oil Consortium, consists of Rosneft, energy giant Gazprom, Lukoil, TNK-BP and Surgutneftegaz. It is to establish a joint venture with PdVSA by the end of 2009. In line with Venezuelan laws, foreign companies can produce oil as part of a joint venture.
Venezuela is one of the largest oil producing countries in the world, with about 87 billion barrels of proven conventional oil reserves as of 2008. In addition, it has a huge non-conventional oil deposits (heavy crude). Most of these deposits are located in the Orinoco oil belt.
