Member states of the South American Community of Nations (CSN) agreed to work together for energy integration in the region, Venezuelan Energy and Petroleum Minister Rafael Ramirez said on Monday.

At the closing ceremony of the one-day Energy Ministers' meeting of the CSN, Ramirez said the ministers agreed to set up a joint oil corporation to develop the potential of the energy industry in the region and promote cooperation and mutual complementarity between the CSN members.

The CSN could be driven by the powerful energy integration, said Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez Araque, adding that economic development is unconceivable without energy.

Rodriguez said "all the countries of the region have important energy sources, which is a matter of elementary logics for our countries to design an energy-integration policy."

Representatives of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela attended the meeting, which is a preparatory session for the CSN Summit for Sept. 29-30 in Brazilian capital of Brasilia.

According to a Venezuelan proposal approved in June, Venezuela is committed to shipping 190,300 barrels of oil per day to 11 Caribbean nations at preferential prices.

Source: Xinhua