Venezuela opens int'l bidding for offshore gas exploration

Venezuela opened on Tuesday global bidding for licenses to explore and run four potentially gas-rich offshore blocks, attracting 30 companies from across the world, Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez announced.

The announcement comes as Venezuela, home to the largest gas reserves in South America, wants to boost its natural gas exploration and exploitation.

The three Caribbean blocks are 320 km north of Las Margaritas islands, and a fourth is in Punta Pescador, about 500 km east of the capital. They were discovered by state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela, known as PDVSA.

Ramirez called the parcels "potentially high-yield and low-risk" deposits of "11 billion cubic feet of gas," or 311.5 million cubic meters.

The country's gas reserves are the largest in Latin America and the eighth largest in the world, but the country's natural gas consumption outstrips its production, by 1.5 billion cubic feet (42.4 million cubic meters) a day.

Ramirez said any new production in the project would be sold to other countries, as Venezuela already had all the gas reserves it needed for domestic use.

He said Venezuela's proven reserves would soon reach 196 trillion cubic feet (5.5 trillion cubic meters).

Ramirez expects investments in the four PDVSA blocks to total at least 172 million dollars, from exploration to drilling and production.

PDVSA offered the foreign companies 65 percent ownership of the three blocks and 30 percent of the fourth, all lasting 20 to 35 years.

Source: Xinhua