PDVSA Agreement to Leg in weeksInteresting comments, PFC says months-PDVSA says it goes to the legislature within weeks, read article
" PetroFalcon Expects PDVSA JV Talks to Take 6 Months
Business News Americas (BNamericas.com) Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Venezuelan oil company Vinccler Oil and Gas and Venezuela's state oil firm PDVSA will take six months to negotiate a final joint venture agreement to substitute the preliminary agreement signed on August 4 by the parties, Vinccler Oil and Gas' Canadian parent PetroFalcon said in a statement.
As anticipated, PDVSA will own more than 50% of the new mixed company, Petrofalcon said, detailing that "each party will contribute oil and gas reserves having a value proportionate with each party's respective ownership of the [resulting] mixed company".
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This last point is conflicting, since while PDVSA, as a state owned company, can offer oil deposits as a guarantee, it is impossible for a private company to do so as in Venezuela hydrocarbons deposits belong to the state by law.
Calls to Vinccler for clarification were fruitless. "We are negotiating the definitive agreement", was all a Vinccler official, who declined to be identified, had to say.
As for future plans, the press release quotes Vinccler chairman and CEO Juan Francisco Clerico as saying, "Vinccler is committed to delivering natural gas into PPSA's [PDVSA Petróleo, a PDVSA subsdiary] ICO pipeline and increasing its oil production in western Venezuela".
ICO is a 400km-plus gas pipeline PDVSA is finishing, which will hopefully provide natural gas that can be injected into the maturing oil fields of Zulia state to keep production up. According to company literature, oil production is delivered to PDVSA's CRP, the world's largest refining complex.
PDVSA president and energy and oil minister Rafael Ramírez said last week that continued production of 200,000 barrels a day (b/d) was ensured with the signing of 13 preliminary joint venture agreements between the company and eight private oil firms that were until that day acting as operators.
The definitive agreements for the eight companies that said yes to the JV arrangement - CNPC, Harvest Natural Resources, Repsol, Vinccler Oil and Gas, Open, Inemaka, Hocol and Suelopetrol - will be submitted to the national assembly for approval within weeks, he said.