Chavez looks to West for help

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is seeking bids from oil companies including Chevron, Shell and Total for new projects.

Chavez may grant them access to some of the world’s biggest petroleum reserves,the New York Times reported, citing unidentified energy industry executives and consultants.

Venezuela’s government said 2 December that 19 companies paid $2 million each for data packs in a bidding process for the Orinico Belt oil blocks, said a Bloomberg note.

The auction began 30 October with 47 companies expressing interest. The auction for parts of the Carabobo site is the first chance in a decade for private companies to set up joint ventures in the country to extract heavy, tarlike crude and improve it into light crude for export.

Chevron, Shell and Total stayed in Venezuela through tax and royalty increases and nationalisations of joint ventures by Chavez in hopes of developing Orinoco oil.

ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips left the country and filed for arbitration.

Companies with arbitration cases against Venezuela are banned from the new bidding process.

Total, in 2007 lost 16.7% of the shares and operating control over the heavy oil Sincor project and after Chavez demanded changes to contracts.

Since 1993 Shell has been operating the Urdaneta West Field with state-owned oil company PDVSA.

Both Shell and Total were unavailable for comment when contacted by phone today.