Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced Wednesday that the French group Total will double its oil production in Venezuela to 400.000 barrels per day.
"Total will go from 200.000 to 400.000 barrels of oil per day, it will double (its production), with an investment of several billion dollars", declared the Venezuelan president after an interview of more than an hour with Jacques Chirac in the Elysee.
Hugo Chavez said he took this decision in agreement with the president of Total, Thierry Desmarest, whom he met Wednesday morning in Paris.
Supporting map, the Venezuelan president explained to journalists gathered in the courtyard of the Elysee that he "put within the reach of French society" the oil reserves of Venezuela, which, he recalled, "Are the most important in the world".
France is the second largest investor in Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil producer.
Hugo Chavez is on a 24-hour working visit to France as part of a ten-day world tour.
Source: Reuters