Venezuela’s Chavez plans to more than triple oil exports to China

BEIJING (AFP) – Venezuela intends to more than triple oil exports to China over the next five years to 500,000 barrels of oil per day, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said.

“On the whole, production will increase in such a way that we will manage to export half a million crude barrels in the five next years,” Chavez told Venezuelan state television overnight.

Venezuela currently delivers 150,000 barrels per day to China, compared with 1.5 million barrels it exports to the United States and Chavez has repeated his intentions to make China one of his nation’s biggest markets.

“We will convert ourselves into one of the large oil exporters to the Chinese giant,” Chavez said.

AFP