(For Reuters Latin American Investment Summit news, click here )

* Says Venezuela is ready for arbitration verdicts

* Ramirez says Libya unrest could cross borders

* Says Japan nuclear crisis will also affect demand

By Marianna Parraga

CARACAS, March 31 (Reuters) - Venezuela calculates it will pay no more than $2,5 billion to Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) and ConocoPhillips (COP.N) in looming arbitration rulings over oil nationalizations, Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said.

Ramirez said he expected rulings this year from a World Bank tribunal in the dispute over projects taken over in 2007 by the government of President Hugo Chavez as he radicalized his socialist project.

"The Republic always pays something for nationalizations, we never said we'd pay nothing. We are ready for the (rulings) to be this year," the minister said in an interview for the Reuters Latin American Investment Summit.

"The multinationals' aspirations are a very long way from what we expect the result to be. We estimate the number will be much less than $2.5 billion between the two cases, if we arrive at that we will consider it a success," he said.

In 2007, Chavez ordered projects worth billions of dollars pass into state control. Some companies stayed on as minority partners after negotiating compensation but Conoco and Exxon left the country and took their cases to the World Bank court.

Combined, the companies originally claimed $40 billion for their areas in Venezuela's vast Orinoco Belt of tar-like oil. Last year, Venezuela said Exxon had lowered its demand to $7 billion, two years after winning a court order to freeze $12 billion of PDVSA assets. The freeze was swiftly overturned.

Analysts have said PDVSA might have to sell overseas holdings to pay court-ordered compensation. The company has cash-flow problems despite soaring oil prices because it passes most of its income to central government.

Ramirez said PDVSA was fully solvent.

"PDVSA will not have to sell assets. We already have a compensation plan," he said, without giving details.

The World Bank's compensation court held the main hearing in the Conoco case in June and has made a preliminary ruling in the Exxon Mobil case that limited the company's claim. [ID:nN11154317]

UNSTABLE OIL PRICES

Ramirez also said oil prices will remain unstable because Western military intervention in Libya has raised the possibility of conflict spreading in North Africa.

The government of Venezuela, South America's top crude producer, has been an outspoken critic of the attacks on Muammar Gaddafi's forces, which Chavez has denounced as a ploy by the West's "men of war" to steal Libya's oil.

Ramirez said the supply shortfall from Libya was rapidly replaced because there was spare capacity in the market.

"But the price will continue to be unstable because it concerns not just the supply situation in Libya, but uncertainty about North Africa and its proximity to the Mediterranean," the minister said in an interview for the Reuters Latin American Investment Summit.

"The blatant intervention in Libya opens an unpredictable window. It is bombing, there is resistance and there is a civil war that could extend to other countries."

He said the situation raised the specter of the oil sector in Iraq, where production has returned far more slowly after the U.S. invasion than some officials in Washington forecast.

"The massive bombing in Libya begins a story that is just starting," Ramirez said late on Wednesday.

The turmoil in the Middle East made crude producers like Venezuela and Russia more reliable suppliers, he said.

He reiterated Venezuela's stance there was no reason for an emergency OPEC meeting because the market was well supplied. But other factors would also move prices, he said.

ALSO FOCUSED ON JAPAN

"The price will continue to fluctuate (due to Libya), and added to that is the situation in Japan, which is a big consumer of petroleum. We are concerned about that because it opens the door to increased oil consumption, which will make it necessary to change its energy matrix," Ramirez said.

"The issue of Japan will be resolved when the nuclear situation is under control, and that will involve a change to liquid fuels."

He said he did not expect turmoil in the Arab world nor Japan's disaster to affect Venezuela's oil supply contracts. Caracas is increasingly focused on Beijing at the expense of the traditional customer for its crude oil, the United States.

"For now there are no direct consequences in China, which is maintaining robust growth. We do not envision problems there," the minister said.

Venezuela is shipping 470,000 barrels per day (bpd) to China, and Ramirez said it expected to increase that to 600,000 bpd this year. The goal is to boost sales to 1 million bpd.

He said PDVSA had no immediate plans to sell more debt on the global capital markets. "There's nothing in the short term," he said.

(For top stories from the Reuters Latin American Investment Summit, see [ID:nN27135818]) (Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and David Gregorio) (daniel.wallis@thomsonreuters.com; +58 212 277 2656; Reuters Messaging: daniel.wallis.reuters.com@reuters.net)