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Venezuela to sell Spain oil at 100 dollars a barrel: Chavez
2008-07-25
MADRID (AFP) - Venezuela will sell Spain up to 10,000 barrels of oil per day at 100 dollars a barrel in exchange for imports of medical equipment and other goods, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Saturday. The roughly 400 million dollars (255 million euros) which will be raised from the sale of this oil will be deposited in a bank account in Madrid which will be used by Venezuela to pay for the imports, he said in an interview with Spanish public television TVE. "This could allow us to create a new international financial architecture in the future. It is a trial, an invention, I think it is time to start inventing new mechanisms of cooperation," he said, adding the oil sales would start "soon". "This will allow us to import food, medical equipment, technology, technology for wind energy which is of great interest to us," he added. Chavez said the agreement was finalised during his meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Friday in Madrid. Oil prices hovered around 125 dollars a barrel on Friday after reaching a record high of over 147 dollars on July 11. Venezuela already provides oil at reduced prices to several Latin American countries including Cuba. Chavez said he had also agreed during his visit to allow Repsol to boost its presence in the Orinoco oil belt in eastern Venezuela. "You will have oil supplies guaranteed for 100 years because Venezuela has oil for 200 years," he told TVE. Venezuelan state-owned oil firm PDVSA estimates there are a total 235 billion barrels of crude in the Orinoco belt. Chavez's visit to Spain was the last stop of a tour of Europe that has already taken in Russia, Belarus and Portugal.
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