CARACAS, Friday August 08, 2008 | Update
A year after the government took control of oil operations
in the Orinoco Oil Belt, Venezuelan energy authorities announced
a package of investments that will double daily production
in the area within the next five years and rose proven deposits
in the oil-rich region to 95 billion oil barrels.
In addition, production in the extra-heavy oil area located
north of the Orinoco River increased from an average of 626,000
bpd in 2007 to 800,000 bpd in July 2008, Venezuelan state
oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) reported.
At the same time, Pdvsa continued the certification of oil
deposits in the Orinoco Oil Belt, in order to increase proven
reserves in the area to 235 billion barrels in 2009.
Having this in mind, Pdvsa has established partnerships with
19 companies, most of them state oil companies from 16 countries,
namely Argentina, Belarus, Brazil, Chile, China, Cuba, Ecuador,
India, Iran, Malaysia, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Uruguay
and Vietnam.
04:17 PM. Western Hemisphere. "Damned empire; I curse you one thousand times; some day you will be finished off and wrecked. I curse you one thousand times, empire." This is the least that President Hugo Chávez has uttered to refer to the US government. In urging the Bolivarian Armed Forces to prepare for war, he said that a US raid on Venezuela through Colombia would trigger and spread over the region "the 100-year war."