"Tovariches! Comrades! Today I feel I must say to you: let us work to find gas and oil under these waters!" said Alexander Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian firm Gazprom, when drills on the Escorpión Vigilante marine platform finally perforated the Venezuelan sea bed.
It was Nov. 7, the anniversary of the 1917 Russian Revolution, and Medvedev and the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Igor Sechin, were accompanying their host, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, at the inauguration of operations by UrdanetaGazprom, a partnership with Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA to explore for gas in the northwestern Gulf of Venezuela.
Moments earlier, perched on the scaffolding of bars and walkways on the Escorpión Vigilante, a platform rented from the United States, Chávez saluted the "strategic alliance between two energy giants," his own country and Russia, "the homeland of Lenin."
The ceremony under the blazing Caribbean sun underlined the importance Caracas attaches to its alliance with Moscow, the numerous economic pacts that sustain it, and the remarkable intensification and acceleration of these agreements this month. "Russia is clearly taking advantage, for the benefit of its companies, of the opportunities opened up by Venezuela, which has self-imposed ideological blinkers," political analyst and professor of economics and international affairs Orlando Ochoa told IPS. "At the same time, Russia is advancing in the terrain of global geopolitical confrontation."
For his part, Chávez "is motivated by geopolitical fears inspired by the United States and Colombia and, in accordance with his view that political agreements should be cemented by business ties, is offering the Russians a wide range of opportunities," said Ochoa, who has been monitoring relations between the two countries for several years.
The inauguration of Escorpión Vigilante, broadcast nationwide by all radio and TV stations, has been the alliance's most eye-catching event. But it is only one of many multimillion dollar deals jump-started this month, ranging from gold, oil and gas to chocolate sales, and from a joint bank to nuclear energy cooperation.
In the political arena, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is to visit Venezuela towards the end of the month, the first president of that country to do so. But the real news in the region is the forthcoming arrival of a Russian fleet in Venezuela to carry out joint naval and air force manoeuvres in the Caribbean sea, which will be mainly simulated search and rescue operations.
The Venezuelan armed forces will take part in these operations using some of the military equipment purchased from Russia over the last three years, costing some 4.5 billion dollars, including multi-role jet fighter aircraft, helicopters, transport planes and assault rifles. Negotiations are also under way to acquire more planes, ships and submarines.
Chávez has visited Russia a dozen times over the past 10 years, and Venezuela has become a frequent destination or stopover for members of Russian leaders when they visit the region. In his impassioned speeches on international issues, Chávez repeatedly defends Moscow and even places it in opposition to Washington, in the context of his proposal for a new "multipolar" world order, while boasting boasts about his friendship with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
The usual cooperation and trade agreements between countries enjoying good relations have been established, and Russian oil companies have begun to operate in Venezuela, but this November economic relations have been revved up. Making the most of Sechin's visit, an intergovernmental commission was set up, which produced 15 business and trade deals.
Russia is to instal car and truck factories in Venezuela, using technology that will allow the vehicles to use natural gas as fuel, and its Naval Construction Institute will partner PDVSA to build a shipyard in the east of the country to make tugs, flatboats and other river craft.
Chávez celebrated the agreement under which Venezuela secured Russian cooperation and technology for the development of nuclear energy "for peaceful purposes." "It goes without saying, but it has to be said: we will have atomic reactors… we will soon be accused of making 100 atomic bombs," he quipped.
Venezuela is a signatory of the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which bans nuclear weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean and has been in force since 1969. For the past half century it has run a small nuclear reactor at the Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC), near Caracas, which is used mainly for medical studies.
Venezuela has also made its large reserves of alumina (used for producing aluminium) available for joint projects with Russia, and new cooperation plans have been announced in the food sector, including exports of Venezuelan cocoa and chocolate to Moscow. Finance Minister Alí Rodríguez is to travel to Moscow to prepare an agreement for the creation of a binational investment bank, which will likely be signed when President Medvedev visits Caracas. But oil and gas form the chief foundation of this economic relationship, and in October five Russian companies -- Rosneft, Lukoil, Gazprom, TNK-BP and Surgutneftegaz -- formed a consortium for operating in Venezuela.
Lukoil and Gazprom have been assigned two of the 27 blocks in the Orinoco Belt, an enormous reserve of extra-heavy crude in southeastern Venezuela that could yield up to 270 billion barrels, a quantity similar to Saudi Arabia's reserves. These blocks are being explored to quantify the reserves accurately, after which partnerships will be formed for exploiting them, as already occurs with U.S. and European companies that are producing 500,000 barrels per day of synthetic crude (an upgraded form of the extra-heavy oils from the Orinoco Belt). "Venezuela is pursuing agreements with Russian oil firms because they have the scope, resources and capacity to make progress in the Belt, as opposed to weaker or less experienced Latin American and Asian companies that have been granted blocks rather as a symbolic gesture," Ochoa said.
Other Venezuelan experts, like Joel Sangronis and José Gil, who are university professors of international affairs and of energy, respectively, drew attention to Russia's growth as a world power with control over global energy resources, which explains the interest its companies are showing in reserves in South American countries like Bolivia, Brazil and Venezuela. It is, however, a risky undertaking, as is prospecting for gas from the Escorpión Vigilante platform in the Gulf of Venezuela, warned geologist Aníbal Martínez of the Oil Defence Front, a nationalist think-tank.
Although Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramírez has said that gas reserves in the Gulf of Venezuela are estimated at 23 trillion cubic feet, Martínez pointed out that "no free natural gas has yet been discovered, and the targeted potential reserves are at a depth of 4,000 feet (1,220 metres)."
"Geophysical methods indicate the possible existence of oil and gas reserves, but the area is geologically distinct from nearby Maracaibo (which has been the major source of South American oil for decades), and the exploratory work that has begun is a high-risk venture," Martínez said.
At any rate, bilateral relations have taken on a new importance. "The Russian and Venezuelan motherlands are together, and will be so forever. These pacts are a symbol of unity. We are entering a new age," said Chávez.
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