a) Operational agreements for 20 years for the reactivation of fields: allowing bidding of
private operators for production in inactive fields or fields requiring investments.
b) Risk and shared profit exploration, in areas with high cost and risk. In 1996, offers for 8
of 10 auctioned areas were received, for 2,500 km2 each, with investments of US $11
billion for 15 years and a production of 500,000 b/d.
c) Strategic Partnerships in the Orinoco Belt: extra heavy crude from this area cannot be
processed in conventional refineries; it requires reducing its viscosity and then be converted
and exported. The Congress adopted several projects in the area.
d) National market: it is important for PDVSA, because it exceeds 700 thousand b/d. The
opening of that market allowed the private sector to participate in the storage,
transportation, distribution and marketing, leaving the supply in the hands of PDVSA. In
1998 with the Internal Market Opening Law, the market was opened to competition.
e) Joint ventures in the petrochemical sector: in 1960 the incorporation of partners to
companies of mixed capital was started. In 1987, Pequiven, a subsidiary of PDVSA, began
the construction of 17 own plants and in association with third parties. It sought to seize oil
associated gas to make it into competitive products, with added value.
f) Industrialization of refinery flows: In 1995 the company Proesca was created, to promote
private sector projects for specialties of local use and export. This enabled the development
of industrial parks adjacent to the refineries.
g) Joint ventures in coal: the production and marketing of coal was opened to private
capitals. Carbozulia, a subsidiary of PDVSA, developed two partnerships with foreign
firms, which contributed capital and experience, to maximize the metallurgical coal at the
expense of thermal coal.
h) Transfer of not-core activities to the private sector, through "outsourcing" agreements, to
transfer the risks to contractors, which provided technology and capital, and shared the
construction and operation risks.
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Convention