Venezuela, Russia seal $14bln oil deal - Maduro

MEXICO CITY, May 28. /TASS/. Venezuela and Russian state-owned companies Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) and Rosneft have sealed a deal to invest $14bln in oil and gas deposits at the Orinoco oil belt, President Nicolas Maduro said on television on Wednesday after a meeting with Rosneft President Igor Sechin, PDVSA President Eulogio Del Pino and Speaker of the National Assembly (parliament) Diosdado Cabello. "We have held a wonderful meeting at which we agreed about investments $14bln worth," Maduro said adding that the investments would "allow to double the oil output" and specifying that "gas projects, including Orinoco, were on the table as well." Speaking to the Venezuelan youths, Maduro called Sechin "a great friend of Venezuela and the whole Latin America." On Wednesday Russian and Venezuelan Foreign Ministers Sergey Lavrov and Delcy Rodriguez had talks in Moscow. Rosneft and PDVSA are engaged in five joint projects on oil production in the republic whose total geological supplies are estimated at over 20.5 billion tonnes. Read more