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Summary Venezuela and Peru signed a bilateral agreement in which Peru will invest in Venezuela's oil belt.
Peru President Ollanta Humala flew to Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela, where he met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to sign the agreement.Perus state oil company PetroPeru will invest in the development of the Orinoco oil belt which holds one of the worlds largest deposits of crude.Humala said the bilateral accord was critical to the development of regional energy production.The future orders us to construct integration, unity, to give each other our hands and work together, rolling up our sleeves and working together. Thats why I want to thank President Chavez for his invitation to come today, to fly over the Orinoco belt, the oil belt, one of the largest reserves on the planet and where we can work together sharing experiences, sharing our work with the brother peoples which is what we are, he said.Chavez stressed the importance of turning the plans into reality.We have to make a big, big effort for these documents to turn into real projects, on the ground, concretely, because were dealing with constructing a national project, a great national project. Its more than proven-- we dont need to investigate much-- weve more than shown that, today, no state can individually insert itself successfully in the world dynamic, he said.The presidents also signed trade, hydrocarbon and migration agreements.OPEC said in July that Venezuela leapt ahead of Saudi Arabia in 2010 to become the worlds No. 1 holder of reserves with 296.5 billion barrels, most of them in the Orinoco belt.However, Orinoco crude is particularly thick and tar-like, and costs much more to pump and transport than light, sweet oil.A number of international companies, including Russian consortium, Spains Repsol, Indias ONGC and Malaysias Petronas, work in the Orinoco.
