Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA will file an application at London's High Court today to overturn an injunction won by Exxon Mobil Corp. to freeze its assets.

The motion will contain six sworn statements, PDVSA lawyer George Kahale of Curtis Mallet-Prevost Colt & Mosle LLP in London said in a telephone interview. He declined to discuss the specifics of the motion.

``We expect a hearing to be scheduled within the next two weeks,'' Kahale said.

Courts in the U.K., Netherlands and Netherlands Antilles issued orders freezing as much as $12 billion in PDVSA assets, Exxon said last week. The decision keeps PDVSA from moving assets, while allowing it to do business, according to court papers.

Exxon, the world's largest oil company, sought the injunctions on concerns that PDVSA would shift its assets out of reach of an international arbitration commission that is hearing a dispute over Venezuela's seizure of oil projects.

The London court has several options in the case, said Michael Polkinghorne, an energy lawyer at White & Case LLP in Paris. A judge may lift the injunction, reduce the number of assets frozen or ask PDVSA to offer an alternative security, he said.

`Frank Disclosure'

PDVSA ``might first seek to establish that there was a lack of full and frank disclosure of material facts that first led to the injunction,'' Polkinghorne said in an interview. ``Full disclosure or not, the injunctive party would ordinarily have to demonstrate that either there was no risk of the assets being spirited away, or that it possessed more than enough accessible assets to settle any eventual award.''

The dispute stems from a 1997 agreement between Mobil Corp. and PDVSA to form a joint venture to explore for extra-heavy crude in the Orinoco oil belt.

Exxon, which later acquired Mobil, claimed PDVSA agreed to indemnify Mobil if it later expropriated Mobil's interests, which Venezuela did in June.

Exxon won a U.S. court order yesterday that extended a freeze on as much as $315 million that would have been transferred to PDVSA in a bond buyback transaction.

Venezuela will also introduce arguments in the Netherlands, Cuba's Prensa Latina reported today.

Venezuela was the second-biggest supplier of crude oil to the U.S. through October, providing an average 1.74 million barrels a day of oil and petroleum products to the U.S. and the Virgin Islands. Canada is the biggest supplier.

To contact the reporter on this story: Caroline Binham in London cbinham@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 14, 2008 11:04 EST