BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

31/03/2007

Belarusian President will make official visit, plans to set up oil joint venture in Venezuela

The National Center of Legal Information
Minsk, Republic of Belarus
Petroleumworld.com 04 02 07

In the near future president of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko will make an official visit to Venezuela and president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Hugo Chavez will visit Belarus later in the year, the presidential press-service told BelTA after president Alexander Lukashenko held a working meeting with Viktor Sheiman, the state secretary of the Security Council of Belarus and co-chairman of the Belarusian-Venezuelan joint high-level commission.

Viktor Sheiman has informed the president about the results of the recent governmental visit to Venezuela.

In the course of the visit, the Belarusian delegation signed a total of 24 agreements, contracts and memoranda. Under the contracts, Belarus will sell tractors, trucks, road-building equipment, refrigerators and food to Venezuela. The parties reached agreements on cooperation in agriculture, machine-building. For example, a decision was taken to start assembling some types of Belarusian equipment in Venezuela.

Under an agreement with Hugo Chavez, Venezuela will provide Belarus with land plots with well-developed oil production infrastructure where Belarus will be able to extract no less than 2 million tons of oil every year beginning 2008.

Belarusian delegation reached an agreement that Belarusian specialists would construct a brick factory in Venezuela with the annual capacity of no fewer than 100 million bricks, and a reinforced concrete structures factory.

The parties also discussed opportunities for cooperation in the international arena. The countries share positions on the majority of urgent international political issues, Viktor Sheiman said.

The president has said Belarus and Venezuela have developed great mutual trust in all issues of bilateral interaction.

Belarusian-Venezuelan Plan to set up oil exploration seismology joint venture in Venezuela

A Belarusian-Venezuelan exploration seismology joint venture will be set up in Venezuela. At present the company has been following registration procedures. According to first vice-premier of this country Vladimir Semashko, the Belarusian and Venezuelan specialists will jointly develop not only the oil deposits Belarus is interested in but also deposits for the Venezuelan Oil Company and other organizations.

Belarus will also supply exploration seismology equipment to Venezuela. The Gomel-based company Seismorazvedka has signed a contract for the supply of five exploration seismology devices to Venezuela. The Venezuelan side plans to test these devices, Vladimir Semashko noted.

According to him, in the near future Belarus and Venezuela may set up joint production of exploration seismology equipment. The basic units and blocks are expected to be made in Belarus; the rest - in Venezuela, the first vice-premier underlined.

Source:

http://www.petroleumworld.com/story07040212.htm