RIA Novosti Mr Vagit Alekperov president of Lukoil as saying that the company is ready to hand over its assets in Venezuela to a Russian oil consortium provided the company receives compensation for its outlay.

He said that "Lukoil, Gazprom and TNK-BP confirm that if a joint venture is set up we will be ready to transfer all our assets to the consortium. He added that LUKoil would expect the consortium to reimburse its outlay on geological exploration in Venezuela.”

The National Oil Consortium of Russian companies working in Venezuela which was formed last October includes Russian energy giant Gazprom, state run crude producer Rosneft, Russian-British joint oil venture TNK-BP oil company Surgutneftegaz and LUKoil.

Last July, LUKoil and the State Petroleum Company of Venezuela signed an agreement on the joint study of the Junin-3 block in the Orinoco heavy oil belt in Venezuela's Guarico state. The Russian company has estimated the block to have reserves of 600 million tonnes of oil.

(Sourced from RIA Novosti)