April 9 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuela plans to boost its oil and gas production, refining and reserves and ship more oil to China, an executive at state-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA said.

Venezuela will pump 3.5 million barrels a day of oil this year and 6.8 million barrels a day in 2021, said Luis Vierma, PDVSA's vice president of exploration and production. Its capital expenditure will total about $17 billion this year and $245 billion in coming years through to 2021.

``There are no rigs available around the world,'' Vierma said at the World National Oil Companies conference in London today. ``For that reason we are going to build our own rigs.'' A tanker fleet will help the nation ``capture markets in Asia,'' he said.

PDVSA is expanding cooperation with China in rig construction, field services and personnel training, Vierma said. The company wants to build a fleet of 47 tankers to ship as much as 1 million barrels a day of its oil to China, where it already sends about 300,000 barrels a day, he said.

Venezuela is investing its oil wealth to expand production, after benefiting from higher oil prices. PDVSA's net income rose 15 percent last year to $6.27 billion while revenue fell 3 percent to $96.2 billion, the company said in a statement on March 28.

The country pumped 3.15 million barrels of oil a day last year and 200,000 barrels a day of natural gas liquids, according to Vierma. Bloomberg estimates Venezuela's 2007 crude production at about 2.4 million barrels a day.

Boosting Output

The state company plans to raise natural gas production to 17.3 billion cubic feet a day in 2012, from 7.7 billion cubic feet a day this year. Oil refining capacity is forecast to rise to 5.5 million barrels a day in 2021 from 3.2 million barrels a day this year, he said.

Between now and 2021, Venezuela hopes to find 4.5 billion barrels of oil and 12.3 trillion cubic feet of gas through exploration, he said.

The country is in talks with PetroVietnam, also known as Vietnam Oil & Gas, to build a refinery in Vietnam, Vierma said. ``There is a strong possibility'' an agreement will be signed this year, he said, declining to give any further details.

PetroVietnam earlier this week signed an accord to build a $6 billion oil refinery with Kuwait Petroleum International, Idemitsu Kosan Co. and Mitsui Chemicals Inc.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eduard Gismatullin and Ben Farey in London at egismatullin@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 9, 2008 12:16 EDT