Venezuela, the nation that potentially holds the world's largest oil reserves ahead of Saudi Arabia, may invest multi-billion dollars in oil refinery and petrochemical projects in India and give New Delhi a stake in its large oilfields.Latin America's only OPEC member country is looking to diversify its oil exports and has agreed to look into the feasibility of an integrated multi-billion-dollar oil project with India that would see ONGC Videsh Ltd getting a stake in a big field giving atleast 200,000 barrels of oil per day and Venezuelan national oil company PdVSA investing in refinery-cum-petrochemical project in India.The agreement came during the visit of Petroleum Minister Murli Deora to Venezuela, the first by any oil minister from India to the Latin American nation.Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafal Ramirez Carreno said his nation was impressed by India's refining capacity and PdVSA will look at setting up a refinery project in India."We see export of 200,000 barrels per day of oil (from field jointly operated by PdVSA and OVL in Venezuela) to a refinery project in India," he said, indicating that the Indian flagship firm would be given a large field in the Orinoco heavy oil basin.The Orinoco heavy oil basin may hold up to 270 billion barrels of oil reserves in addition to the existing 80 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, making it the nation with largest oil reserves ahead of Saudi Arabia that has close to 160 billion barrels of reserves.
