Russia's National Oil Consortium on Friday paid Venezuela a bonus of $600 million for participation in the development of the Junin-6 deposit, the head of a company making part of the consortium said.
Vladimir Bogdanov, the head of Surgutneftegaz, added that Friday is to see constituent documents signed and a joint venture registered in which 60% belongs to Venezuela's state oil and gas corporation Petroleos de Venezuela (PdVSA), and 40% to the Russian consortium.
The National Oil Consortium (NNK) of Russian companies working in Venezuela includes Russian energy giant Gazprom, state-run crude producer Rosneft, Russian-British joint oil venture TNK-BP, Surgutneftegaz and LUKoil.
Total investment into the Junin-6 block development - a project designed to last 25 years - is estimated to reach $20 billion. The agreement on the joint venture between Russia and Venezuela was signed a month ago in Moscow. The Junin-6 oil field could produce up to 450,000 barrels daily by 2017.
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 huge non-conventional oil deposits (heavy crude). Most of these deposits are located in the Orinoco oil belt.
CARACAS, April 2 (RIA Novosti)
