Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA said on Friday that it has signed a contract with an Iranian company to set up a joint venture to explore off-shore hydrocarbons.

The contract was signed between PDVSA's Venezuela Petroleum Corp. subsidiary and Sadra America Latina, a company owned by the Iranian government, the Venezuelan oil giant said in a statement.

The joint venture, which was named Veneziran Oil Company, will benefit Venezuela because Sadra is well versed in developing deep sea projects and will target new gas developments, the statement said.

"For PDVSA, from a strategic point of view, we will get rid of dependence and gain technological autonomy and integration between our two nations," it said. "The idea is to make the machinery in Venezuela and then export technology, and work with these joint ventures in other brother nations which have offshore deposits."

The new company guarantees the transfer of technology from Sadra to Venezuela in the fields of engineering, building, rebuilding and repair of semi-submergible platforms, self-raising platforms and off-shore structures.

Source: Xinhua