Schlumberger, PDVSA agree toJV, Minister says

CARACAS-VIENNA
Petroleumworld.com, Mar 17, 2009

Schlumberger Ltd. , the world's largest provider of oilfield services, and state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA agreed to form a joint venture, Venezuelan Oil and Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said.

“We have a memorandum with Schlumberger to form a joint venture,” Ramirez said today in an interview in Vienna. The state company's unpaid invoices to Houston-based Schlumberger are “not a big problem,” he said. He declined to provide further details.

The Venezuelan company, known as PDVSA, started converting production contracts with private companies into joint ventures in 2006. PDVSA owns at least 60 percent stakes in the ventures . Joint venture services may include such tasks as cementing wells, hydraulic fracturing, directional drilling and offshore seismic surveys, PDVSA said in an Aug. 27 statement.

Schlumberger sales in Latin America rose 16 percent to $4.23 billion last year, according to the company's annual financial statement.

PDVSA is catching up on payments to vendors including service companies, Ramirez said on March 6. About 56 companies with long-term contracts will have to renegotiate them before they get paid, he said. Debts outstanding to Schlumberger and Halliburton Co. were a combined $800 million, Dow Jones Newswires reported on Jan. 16.

Stephen Harris , a spokesman at Schlumberger, didn't immediately return a call from Bloomberg News seeking comment. The stock fell 66 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $39.30 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.