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Venezuela has the largest conventional oil reserves and the second-largest natural gas reserves in the Western Hemisphere. In addition Venezuela has non-conventional oil deposits (extra-heavy crude oil, bitumen and tar sands) approximately equal to the world's reserves of conventional oil. Venezuela is also amongst world leaders in hydroelectric production, supplying a majority of the nation's electrical power through the process. ==Development of energy policies== Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1975-1976, creating Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PdVSA), the country's state-run oil and natural gas company. Along with being Venezuela's largest employer, PdVSA accounts for about one-third of the country's GDP, 50% of the government's revenue and 80% of Venezuela’s exports earnings. The policy changed in the 1990s, when Venezuela introduced a new oil policy known as Apertura Petrolera, which opened its upstream oil sector to private investments. This facilitated the creation of 32 operating service agreements with 22 separate foreign oil companies, including international oil majors like Chevron, BP, Total, and Repsol-YPF. The role of PdVSA in making national oil policy increased significantly. In 1999, Venezuela adopted the Gas Hydrocarbons Law, which opened all aspects of the sector to private investment.〔 This policy changed after Hugo Chávez took the presidential post in 1999. In recent years the Venezuelan government has reduced PdVSA’s previous autonomy and amended the rules regulating the country’s hydrocarbons sector. In 2001, Venezuela passed a new Hydrocarbons Law that superseded the previous 1943 Hydrocarbons Law and 1975 Nationalization Law. Under the 2001 law, royalties paid by private companies increased from 1-17% to 20-30%. Venezuela started to strictly adhere to OPEC production quotas. The ownership separation of power generation, transmission, distribution and supply functions was required by 2003 but still not enforced. Venezuela's new energy policy implemented by President Chávez in 2005 includes six major projects: * Magna Reserve; * Orinoco Project; * Delta-Caribbean Project; * Refining Project; * Infrastructure Project; * Integration Project. In 2007, Chávez announced the nationalization of the oil industry. The foreign oil companies were forced to sign agreements giving majority control of hydrocarbons projects to PdVSA. Projects owned by companies like ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil, who failed to sign these agreements, were taken over by PdVSA. Venezuela's oil production has fallen by a quarter since President Chávez took office and falling oil prices have affected the government budget severely. However, since 2009, oil prices have surged, and more nations around the world are turning to Venezuela's large oil reserves to boost tight energy supplies: Italy’s Eni SpA, Petrovietnam and Japanese companies including Itochu Corp. and Marubeni Corp. have signed on to, or are in negotiations to sign on to, joint-ventures with PdVSA. China National Petroleum Corp., or CNPC, also signed a $16.3 billion joint-venture agreement for a project that will eventually pump an additional for Asian refineries. Separately, Venezuela has been exporting of crude to China to repay $20 billion of loans extended by the China Development Bank Corp. in April 2010 to finance much-needed infrastructure projects in Venezuela.〔 PdVSA is selling oil at market prices to repay the 10-year loan. Shipments to repay the debt represent half Venezuela’s daily crude exports to China.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Energy policy of Venezuela」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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