Brazilian state oil company Petrobras said it no longer plans an investment in a Venezuelan gas project which analysts said had been stalled due to disagreements on how to use the gas. "Mariscal Sucre, we are out of the project," Petrobras CEO Jose Sergio Gabrielli told Reuters in an interview on November 13.
"Our evaluation of Mariscal Sucre said it was not attractive to us." Gabrielli declined to give further details. Analysts said Venezuela wanted to use the gas from the fields to supply the local market, while Petrobras preferred to liquefy the gas for shipping to lucrative international markets.
Leftist president Hugo Chavez has tightened the terms under which foreign companies can extract Venezuela's hydrocarbons, prompting some companies such as US oil majors Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips to exit investments.
Petrobras remains in negotiations with Bolivia on possible new investments there, Gabrielli said, after earlier questioning whether the new terms introduced last year made such investments economic.
"We are considering the possibility of new exploration investment," he said. The CEO added that despite some reductions in supplies of gas to Brazilian consumers recently, there was not a shortage of supplies. "This is a fake crisis," he said, adding that industrial consumers could choose to have contracts which guaranteed uninterrupted gas supply but that many did not want to pay the added cost for this.
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