USTU and PdVSA are ready to cooperate

This week Ukhta was visited by the main leader of integrated research of Venezuelan company PdVSA-GAS, Ilse Lilibeth Lopez-Perez.

She has devoted a few days to the exploring the city and USTU university complex: she visited main University halls, name classrooms of oil and gas companies, visited the Centre of Staff Training, and Exploration Department. Also, the Venezuelan guests met with USTU Rector, Nikolai Tskhadaya.

The rector told Ms. Lopez-Perez about the University and that there are three operating mines in Ukhta region, in Yarega village, which extract heavy oil with mining method. Also, Nikolai Tskhadaya promised that he will make sure to organize a trip to the mine for Lopez-Perez during her next visit.

According to the guest, on the territory of Venezuela, in the Orinoco River basin, at a depth of 6-7 thousand feet there is the world's largest deposit of heavy oil. Consortium composed of Russian Oil and Gas Company has been developing it. Therefore, Lopez-Perez stressed that the exchange of experiences and technologies with Russian experts is of a special importance.

Besides studying the technology of underground gas storage, the Venezuelan industry is interested in the prospects of cooperation with Russia in the field of development of heavy oil deposits. The Government of South American republic has developed ambitious plans to develop Venezuelan oil and gas industry an implementation of which is impossible without mutually beneficial international network.

Without exaggeration, the scientific school of high-viscosity oil, which was established here at USTU, has no equivalent in all of Russia. We are very interested in having our specialists visit you for sharing experiences. I'm sure it will be mutually beneficial for both parties, said Tskhadaya. Ms. Lopez-Perez agreed that the idea is very good, but it needs to take some kind of bureaucratic form.

We start to understand how important it is to work with Russians, Italians, and French. Venezuelan government has excellent bilateral relations with Russia, so our partnership with your university has excellent prospects, assured Ilse Lilibeth Lopez-Perez.

At the end of the meeting the sides exchanged souvenirs. Since Lopez-Perez cannot bring big and heavy gift to her own country, Nikolai Tskhadaya gave her a miniature miner's helmet and received a keychain with PdVSA logo in return.

For your information:

The state company PdVSA is one of the largest in the world. PdVSA actively invests outside of Venezuela, in the U.S., Germany, Finland, Sweden, Belgium and the UK.

PdVSA includes the following divisions: PdVSA Petroleo y Gas, PdVSA Exploration and Production, PdVSA Manufacturing and Marketing, PdVSA Services, PdVSA Pequiven (petrochemicals), PdVSA-CIED and PdVSA-Intevep (education, services and R & D), PdVSA-Palmaven (ecology) and PdVSA-SOFIP (investment fund).

Three quarters of the oil produced in Venezuela is heavy oil. The most significant reserves of heavy oil are concentrated in the east of Venezuela in the so-called "Orinoco heavy oil belt" (270 miles long and 40 miles wide). In this zone, with the participation of foreign (including Russian) companies it is planned to implement several large-scale projects.