OREANDA-NEWS.  January 12, 2012. PetroMonagas, a joint venture between TNK-BP (16.7%) and Venezuela’s national oil company PDVSA (83.3%), intends to increase its heavy oil production by 20% to 145,000 bpd in 2013.

This asset’s long-term development strategy envisions further production growth: a project team will be formed this year to explore opportunities to raise PetroMonagas output to 200,000 bpd through major projects to debottleneck the Central Processing Facility (CPF) and the heavy crude oil Upgrader.

The 185 sq. km PetroMonagas block is located in the eastern part of the prolific Orinoco extra heavy oil belt (Faja), which lies on the northern side of the Orinoco River. The company may produce a total of more than 1 bn barrels of oil from 2012 until its license expires in March 2033.

According to TNK-BP Vice President, International Projects and Exploration, Chris Einchcomb, PetroMonagas is a fully integrated Upstream and Downstream project and looks very promising because of long-term potential, less uncertainty, and fewer risks. “Heavy crude production projects in Venezuela will enable us to capture the entire value chain in extra-heavy crude exploration and production, upgrading, and marketing of the resulting commercial oil stream,” he said in his interview for the corporate Innovator magazine.