OREANDA-NEWS. The Minister of Petroleum of Venezuela and the President of the state company Petr?leos de Venezuela (PDVSA), Eulogio Del Pino, met today in Caracas Eni’s CEO, Claudio Descalzi.

During the meeting, they discussed various issues, including the current challenging situation of the oil industry caused by the fall of crude oil prices and the possible future scenarios.

It was then assessed the progress status of the super-giant Perla gas field in the gulf of Venezuela (operated by Cardon IV, equally held by Eni and Repsol) put into production since last July and which is already producing 14 million cubic meters of gas per day (corresponding to approximately 90,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day).

“I congratulate with Cardon and its shareholders for the effective implementation of Perla project in such rapid  times‘ said the Minister Del Pino.

In addition, perspectives of a further production growth of Perla (Phase II with more then 23 million of cube meters) were discussed together with the possibility of using part of the resources of the field shortly for export projects.

Perla gas project can be framed into Eni’s gas advocacy strategy, which, giving priority to the domestic use, it increases the access to the energy of the countries where the company operates.

Finally, it was also analyzed the opportunity of studying high potential new areas for gas production in the country, to explore and eventually to jointly fast track their development, in the event of new discoveries.

In Venezuela, Eni's current production is about 60,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, coming from the fields of Perla (Eni 50% stake), PetroJun?n (Eni 40% stake) and Corocoro (Eni 26%stake).