By Juan Pablo Spinetto and Alexander Kwiatkowski

Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the state oil company, is seeking bids to develop the Carabobo field in the Faja del Orinoco, one of the world's biggest oil deposits.

Details of the bidding to develop Carabobo block 1 will be announced in a ``few weeks,'' Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said in an interview in Vienna today.

Venezuela's Faja del Orinoco holds more than a trillion barrels of oil. The state oil company forecasts production at the site will rise to 2 million barrels a day within the next five years, up from about 600,000 barrels now. Venezuela is trying to bring back foreign investors after President Hugo Chavez changed contract terms, prompting Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips to pull out of the country.

``We have everything ready to make the announcement of the timeline, conditions and framework of this business to be developed,'' Ramirez said. ``It will be very crowded. We are already talking to the companies that want to participate.''

Christophe de Margerie, chief executive officer of Total SA, said France's largest oil company would be ``pleased to participate'' in the bidding. He spoke in Vienna after a meeting with Ramirez.

The Faja's tar-like oil requires processing into a more marketable form of crude before it can be sold. Ramirez said the field is ``the first part of an area'' that Venezuela surveyed with Petroleo Brasileiro SA. Reserves of 10 billion barrels of heavy oil were identified there, he said. He declined to give further details of the field.

Venezuela intends to produce 3.45 million barrels a day of oil in 2008, Ramirez said. The country is currently pumping 3.3 million barrels a day, he said.

Crude oil for March delivery fell $2.79, or 3 percent, to $88.96 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday. The contract fell 1.9 percent in the past week. Futures have dropped 11 percent since reaching a record $100.09 a barrel on Jan. 3.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski in London at akwiatkowsk2@bloomberg.net ; Juan Pablo Spinetto in Vienna at jspinetto@bloomberg.net .