New venture wins exclusive oil marketing rights

摘要

Venezuelan state-owned oil company PdV has formed a new Orinoco upstream joint venture - Petrosur - with former executives of Spanish firm Repsol. The agreement breaks with the terms of existing ventures by giving the minority partner the exclusive right to market all the oil. Petrosur has "sole and exclusive rights" to directly market all extra-heavy crude production, synthetic crude and refined products derived from the oil belt's Junin 10 block, according to the venture's articles of incorporation and related Venezuelan, Spanish and Dutch legal documents. The marketing clause constitutes a major departure from long-standing rules mandating that crude produced by Venezuela's 45 existing upstream joint ventures can only be marketed internationally by PdV or one of its wholly owned subsidiaries. The terms of the new deal will generate demands from PdV's other Orinoco partners for equal treatment, a local oil industry executive says.