Venezuela’s Chavez woos China with oil ambitions
Source: The Financial Express [India]
BEIJING, AUG 24 : Venezuela, seeking to diversify its crude exports and ease reliance on the US market, hopes to increase oil sales to China by six times to 1 million barrels a day in the next decade, President Hugo Chavez said on Thursday.
On his fourth visit to Beijing, Chavez also said Chinese President Hu Jintao gave him a personal assurance of support in his bid for a seat on the United Nations’ Security Council - in opposition to US-backed Guatemala. Energy cooperation is the cornerstone of the burgeoning relationship between the world’s second-largest consumer and fifth largest exporter. The plan by Chavez to ramp up supplies is likely to help cement ties that are worrying Washington.
“We hope in a few years to reach a half million barrels a day of oil to China, and further forward, 1 million barrels in the next decade,” Chavez told reporters after a formal welcome at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Venezuela currently supplies China with around 160,000 bpd of crude — out of total Chinese imports of nearly 3 million bpd — and has said it aims to more than triple that by 2009. The two countries have signed billions of dollars worth of investment agreements, including energy and petrochemical deals worth around $2 billion, Chavez said.
These included a deal for China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) to operate the eastern Zumano fields, and for the joint operation of the Junin 4 block of the Orinoco heavy oil belt with state oil firm PDVSA, officials said at a signing ceremony.
They declined to put a value on individual contracts. China has been keen to keep the trip focused on business to avoid antagonising Washington, which gets around 12% of its imports from Venezuela.
—Reuters
