Big natural gas find announced off Venezuela coast
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MADRID
Spanish energy giant Repsol has made a huge natural gas find off the coast of Venezuela that it thinks it is one of the world's biggest reserves, a spokeswoman said Friday.
The field in the Gulf of Venezuela is believed to contain 7 to 8 trillion cubic feet of gas, although the company is still conducting final tests to ascertain the amount, said Repsol spokeswoman Begona Elices. She called such a volume enormous.
The find was first announced by visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in an interview with the newspaper El Pais. He divulged its existence during a walkabout in Madrid, while visiting a bookstore. Repsol chairman Antonio Brufau was with him at the time.
Chavez gave the figure on the gas volume and Elices confirmed it to the AP.
For comparison, 7 to 8 trillion cubic feet is roughly five times the natural gas that Spain consumes in a year, said another Repsol spokesman, Kristian Rix.
The gas was found in an exploration block called Rafael Urdaneta. Repsol began work there in 2006 along with the state-owned Venezuelan company PDVSA.
Rix said it is not known when the company will start pumping the gas, but in cases like these that normally takes two to four years.
"At the rate the certified scientific discoveries are going, Venezuela's gas reserves will place it among the top five in the world," the newspaper quoted Chavez as saying.
Rix said this is Repsol's biggest natural gas find ever.
