OREANDA-NEWS. March 16, 2009. Belarusian-Venezuelan joint venture Petrolera BeloVenesolana extracted 690,000 tonnes of oil from Guara Este and Lago Medio deposits in 2008. This year the enterprise is supposed to acquire another three oil fields and increase the output up to 2 million tonnes, the Belorusneft press service told.

BelTA reported earlier, the Belarusian-Venezuelan joint venture began extracting oil in January 2008. Specialists believe the first year was the year the international team grew stronger. At present the company employs 130 Venezuelan specialists and 37 Belarusian ones.

Apart from that, another Belarusian-Venezuelan joint venture operates in Venezuela. Sismica BeloVenesolana carries out seismic operations in the basin of the River Oronoco. The enterprise started operating in May 2008. Over the seven months 956 km of the area were surveyed. Seismic data was acquired from 54.5% of the territory. Experts believe the oil reserves in the oil belt are the largest ones in the world and exceed 37 billion tonnes.

At the end of 2008 Belorusneft sent 38 railway cars of technological equipment to Venezuela. It will be used to increase the production rate of oil-bearing strata and to repair wells. In late February 2009 Belarusian specialists left Belarus for Venezuela where they will operate the equipment. All the foremen and drill men had passed a two-week specialised training in Moscow and had acquired international certificates. The drill men will also have to teach Venezuelan specialists how to use the equipment designed for utilising and repairing oil wells A60/80.