Venezuela and Colombia on Saturday launched the construction of a natural gas pipeline in Venezuela's western state of Zulia.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Panamanian President Martin Torrijos attended the inauguration ceremony.

The 225-km pipeline will link the natural gas fields in Colombia's La Guajira department and Venezuela's city of Maracaibo in Zulia.

The project is financed with an investment of 336 million U.S. dollars by state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela and construction is expected to be completed by next May.

The pipeline is expected to send 150 million cubic feet of natural gas (about 4.2 million cubic meters) to Zulia per day from Colombia to help alleviate the shortage of fuel in western Venezuela.

The three presidents also signed a memorandum on Saturday on setting up a negotiating committee for promoting energy cooperation among the three nations.

The three nations also agreed to extend the pipeline to Colombia's Pacific coast, the natural gas fields in eastern Venezuela and the Central American region.

Venezuela has Latin America's largest proven gas reserves estimated at 149 trillion cubic feet (about 4.2 trillion cubic meters), but most of the deposits are in the east of the country.

Source: Xinhua