(ABN - Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias) -"A total of 7 billion barrels in reserves of oil in situ have been certified in the 9 blocks under exploration at the Orinoco's Oil Strip, the Exploration and Exploitation Vice-president of Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa, Venezuelan oil company), Luis Vierma, informed.

Vierma said they expect to certify around 235 billion barrels more of heavy oil among all the blocks. And 20% of that total could be recovered using current technology for this type of hydrocarbon.

For 2007 there is expected a remarkable increasing of the explorations works at Orinoco's Oil Strip. A step forward in the Offshore Project carried out at the maritime platform of Sucre, Monagas, and Delta Amacuro states (North-east part of Venezuela) is also expected, Luis Vierma affirmed.

'In the north of Monagas we are going to perforate wells of more than 20 thousand feet deep and we have big expectations of increasing light and medium oil production', Vierma said.

For 2012 Pdvsa plans to increase its national oil production to 4 million barrels per day, he explained.

At the moment there are 7 foreign enterprises working on Orinoco's Oil Strip and other ten are part of the Offshore Project.

'At blocks 2 and 3 of the delta platform the exploration works are almost done by Chevron-Texaco. They have almost doubled the total of reserves that we expected to find there', Vierma affirmed.

Statoil is also finishing the perforation of its first well 'with excellent results', he added.

In this regard, he said, that several international companies have shown already their interest in the exploration of blocks 4 and 5 of this project, which are located at the most deep zones of the Venezuelan oceanic platform.

Vierma considers that this interest is reinforced by the transparency and equality of opportunities that Venezuelan laws offer, and the firm position of the government to guarantee the immaculate performance of all the undersigned contracts in gas and oil areas".