Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent

LOS ANGELES, May 16 -- Portugal's Galp Energia and Venezuela's state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) have signed five cooperation agreements concerning energy projects for oil, renewable energy, and natural gas, including two LNG liquefaction plants.

The agreements follow a memorandum of understanding the two companies signed last October and cover the creation of the LNG projects, joint work in the Orinoco belt, the purchase of oil, and development of wind farms.

The two companies will jointly develop two LNG projects in Plataforma Deltana and Mariscal Sucre fields. Each project will involve construction of a pipeline to carry gas from the fields to the liquefaction trains.

The liquefaction facilities will be installed at Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho industrial complex, at Guiria, in Sucre state. Each train will have the capacity to process a total of 6.5 billion cu m/year of gas to be sold on the international market as LNG.
For the two LNG projects, Galp and PDVSA will create two companies, owned 15% and 85% respectively. Under the agreement, Galp will receive 2 billion cu m/year of LNG from the companies, with first LNG expected before 2014.