ENAP Could Invest in Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt --Report
CARACAS (PLATTS) 2JAN07
Chile’s ENAP is evaluating investing some $800 million in Venezuela’s oil sector, Chilean newspaper El Mercurio said Tuesday.
According to the newspaper, ENAP is interested in teaming up with Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA and another foreign partner to develop heavy crude in Venezuela’s Orinoco heavy oil belt.
ENAP could help build a refinery to process heavy crude that would then be further refined at an ENAP’s Biobio coker plant or at its Aconcagua plant, which is expected to be completed this year.
ENAP general manager Enrique Davila is evaluating the proposal, and ENAP officials met with PDVSA officials several times in Venezuela in 2006 to discuss it and work on a memorandum of understanding, the newspaper said. The negotiations stalled in late 2006 as the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez campaigned for reelection, the report said.
ENAP already has operations in Ecuador, Argentina, Egypt, Iran and Yemen.
Venezuela has signed a myriad of energy cooperation deals with its Latin American neighbors in an effort to boost regional energy integration and lessen traditional dependence on U.S. markets. PDVSA has already invited 11 companies, the majority state-owned firms from political allies, to study reserves in the Orinoco belt.
Jens Gould About
Jens Erik Gould is a politics and business writer and editor who has reported for The New York Times, National Public Radio, Bloomberg News and TIME.
Jens Erik Gould is a political, business and entertainment writer and editor who has reported from a dozen countries for media outlets including The New York Times, National Public Radio and Bloomberg News. As a reporter, he has interviewed presidents, government ministers, governors, central bankers, corporate CEOs and pop stars.
Jens Erik Gould began his journalism career with an op-ed he published in the Santa Fe New Mexican in 2003 after completing a Fulbright grant in Europe. In the piece, Jens urged his fellow Americans to become more educated about other countries and cultures, arguing that this would help reduce bias and broaden perspectives about the world at a time when the U.S. was beginning its war on terror abroad.
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