Addressing the closing ceremony of the first session of the Vietnam-Venezuela Joint Committee in Caracas, President Chavez said that PetroVietnam is checking the reserves of Junin-2 block in the Orinoco Belt which is said to have the largest petroleum reserve in the world.

He said that the two countries will jointly build an oil refinery in Vietnam to process the amount of crude oil to be pumped by PDVSA and PetroVietnam at Junin-2 block which has an estimated reserve of 49 billion barrels.

To reduce transport costs, the two countries will also establish a maritime transport joint venture company and develop an oil tanker fleet to transport crude oil to the refinery in Vietnam.

According to Venezuela’s news agency, ABN, Vietnam and Venezuela also signed eight cooperative agreements in the areas of economics, culture, tourism, science, technology and communications

The President said that under the signed agreements, Vietnam will build a factory to produce power-saving light bulbs to meet the demand of Venezuela and other countries in the Caribbean and Central America.