New Delhi, Apr 9: India's ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) has entered into a major partnership with Venezuela's Petroleos De Venezuela S. A. (PDVSA) for jointly developing the San Cristobal oil field.

OVL and PDVSA signed a joint venture (JV) agreement for the San Cristobal Field in Junin, Orinoco Region of Venezuela late last night in Caracas, Venezuela.

This JV agreement was concluded in the presence of Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli Deora and his Venezuelan counterpart Rafael Ramirez Carreno.

Deora described the event as a historic milestone in the growing cooperation between India and Venezuela in the hydrocarbon sector.

"This JV will pave way for more such mutually beneficial projects between the two countries," he added.

OVL is a 100 per cent subsidiary of India's leading national oil company ONGC.

Under this joint venture, OVL will have a participating interest of 40 per cent, while PDVSA retains the remaining 60 per cent in the San Cristobal Field. They will jointly develop the field from its current production level of 20,000 bbl per day to 40,000 bbl per day.

This joint venture will also explore the potential of discovering more hydrocarbons in the unexplored area of the project.

In addition, the joint venture will also explore employing Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques to improve oil recovery rate in the field. The EOR techniques have been successfully commercialized by ONGC in its western heavy field in India.

The Government of India has recently approved OVL's participation in the project with an investment of US 356 million dollars.

The signing fructifies the consistent efforts on part of India's Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas to take forward relations between India and Venezuela.

Venezuela is one of the largest oil producing countries in the world, with about 87 billion barrels of proven conventional oil reserves (OPEC 2006).

In addition, it has a huge non-conventional oil deposits (heavy oil). Most of these deposits are located in the Orinoco oil belt. (ANI)