Venezuela again renews drilling tender

CARACAS/HOUSTON: Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, has relaunched a large tender for the drilling of 600 oil wells in the world’s largest crude reserves, sources with knowledge of the tender said this week, after a similar project collapsed last year amid concerns about transparency and political favoritism.

Reuters reported last month that tiny Colombian trucking firm Trenaco, whose management was close to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, won a multibillion-dollar contract to carry out similar work despite having no relevant experience.

In a rare rebellion, foreign oil companies protested to PDVSA that Trenaco was vastly underqualified, leading to the cancellation of the $4.5 billion deal.

PDVSA has now revived a similar project but split it into six separate contracts of 100 wells each, three sources with knowledge of the tender told Reuters. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not want to jeopardize future business.

Three Orinoco Belt joint ventures - companies that are majority-owned by PDVSA with minority stakes held by foreign and local partners - are each offering two contracts for 100 wells each.

The joint ventures are Petrovictoria, which includes Russia’s Rosneft ; Petrocarabobo, which includes Spain’s Repsol SA and India’s ONGC Videsh ; and Petroindependencia, which includes Chevron Corp, Venezuela’s Suelopetrol, and Japanese companies Mitsubishi Corp and Inpex Corp.

Caracas-based PDVSA did not respond to a request for comment.