Venezuela’s PDVSA Wants to Invest in Argentine Oil, Chavez Says

Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the state oil company known as PDVSA, wants to invest in Argentina to help the country increase oil production, President Hugo Chavez said today in Brasilia.

YPF SA (YPFD), Arentina’s largest oil producer, is also working on plans to start working in Venezuela’s Orinoco heavy crude belt and may enter the Petroanzoategui heavy crude upgrading project, Chavez said.

“We’ll work to recover space and time so that YPF soon will be in the Orinoco, and in fields that are already producing,” said Chavez. “We’ll keep our presence in Argentina’s offshore fields, and later we’ll work on refining.”

Venezuelan Oil Minister and PDVSA president Rafael Ramirez is traveling to Buenos Aires for additional meetings with YPF officials, Chavez told reporters. PDVSA operates the Petroanzoategui oil upgrader, which converts heavy crude into lighter oil, with a 100 percent stake after Chavez nationalized the stake held by ConocoPhillips (COP) in 2007.

Argentina nationalized a 51 percent stake of YPF held by Spanish oil company Repsol SA (REP) in April.

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To contact the reporter on this story: Nathan Crooks in Caracas at ncrooks@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Attwood at jattwood3@bloomberg.net