On Monday, sixteen months after restoring diplomatic and economic relations, Colombia and Venezuela signed thirteen new bilateral cooperation agreements including in health, science, technology, energy and culture.
OPEC’s proven crude oil reserves rose 12.1 percent in 2010 to 1.19 trillion barrels led by Venezuela, which has surpassed Saudi Arabia as the group’s largest reserves holder, OPEC said in its Annual Statistical Bulletin.
With a total investment of US$17 billion, Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, and the Italian energy company ENI created two new mixed enterprises on Monday to extract and refine oil from Venezuela’s Orinoco Oil Belt.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has signed contracts with oil companies from India, Japan, Spain and the U.S. in order to establish two joint venture companies on Wednesday. The companies in turn will invest 40 billion dollars in the country.
In a private meeting on Tuesday, Presidents Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Álvaro Uribe of Colombia signed accords for a bi-national investment fund and for joint exploitation of the Orinoco Oil Belt, and also promised to forge stronger, more peaceful relations.
