MOSCOW (MRC) -- Repsol is considering taking over a portion of a heavy oil project in Venezuela that was dropped by Petronas, Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.
Mr. Ramirez said a committee of the joint venture at the Carabobo development in Venezuela's Orinoco heavy oil belt will soon determine how to allocate the 11% stake previously held by Petronas. He added the portion also could be absorbed by state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, or PdVSA, which owns 60% of the project.
Repsol is already a stakeholder in the same Carabobo bloc along with Oil & Natural Gas Corp. and two other Indian companies.
An official for an oil company doing business in Venezuela said finding a partner to fill in for Petronas wouldn't be a challenge.
"It's not going to be hard to find somebody who is interested," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivities surrounding the project. The official pointed at Indian oil partners as another possible suitor.
Petrobras said in a statement it was pulling out of the joint venture it entered in May 2010. Petronas said it had notified Venezuelan officials of the decision on August 27.
A person familiar with the Petronas-PdVSA negotiations said the frequent breakdown in communications with the Venezuelan government, along with regulatory uncertainty in the South American country contributed to the withdrawal.
As MRC informed previously, in early 2013, Shell closed the purchase of a raft of LNG assets from Spain's Repsol with an announcement imminent. The Anglo-Dutch supermajor was finally set to snap up the LNG assets of Repsol in Peru and Trinidad & Tobago. Repsol was set to land around EUR1.5 billion (USD1.96 billion) in cash from the deal, which also indicates Repsol LNG has gross debts of around EUR1 billion.
Repsol S.A. is an integrated Spanish oil and gas company with operations in 28 countries. The bulk of its assets are located in Spain. It is now the 15th largest petroleum refining company according to the Fortune Global 500 list.
MRC