China's activities in Venezuela's energy sector began to expand noticeably in 2007, when China National Petroleum Corp. and Petroleos de Venezuela began to form a number of joint venture companies to produce oil in the Orinoco Belt. Currently, they have four joint ventures — Petrolera Sino-Venezolana (formed November 2006), Petrozumano (formed November 2007), Sinovensa (formed February 2008) and Petrourica (formed December 2010). The latter two operate throughout the Orinoco Belt, in the Carabobo and Junin divisions respectively. Since 2008, China National Petroleum Corp. has increased production at Sinovensa from zero to around 140,000 bpd, and it now intends to increase it to 330,000 bpd by 2016. Additionally, the Petrourica joint venture is still in the exploration phase and could begin producing oil in the coming decade.
In May 2012, China broke ground on the 400,000-bpd Guangdong refinery, which is a joint venture between China National Petroleum Corp. and Petroleos de Venezuela and will likely provide the financing to finally guarantee the future of the 300,000-bpd Refinery of the Pacific. With a 60 percent stake in the former and a 30 percent stake in the latter, China will have much more bandwidth to increase the oil trade with Venezuela and Ecuador, signaling that cooperation is likely on the upswing. But given that these two projects are still in their infancy, it will likely be at least several years before these refineries come online.
