By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Sep 4 2008 (IPS)

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and his South African counterpart Thabo Mbeki announced that their countries have a “strategic” relationship, before signing a framework cooperation agreement in Pretoria, which paves the way for future arrangements on technology transfer and concrete deals involving oil and food.

“Today we are in the midst of a terrible crisis all over the world – a financial, economic, food, energy, environmental and moral crisis. So it is urgent, it is essential to unite the people of the South in the way that South Africa and Venezuela are doing today in order to devise a new strategic agenda,” Chávez told his hosts.

“We have agreed that the relationship between South Africa and Venezuela should indeed assume a strategic character,” Mbeki said at the presidents’ meeting on Tuesday, the first day of Chávez’s two-day visit.

“We have this possibility to build a relationship that will be mutually beneficial, but that will also make an impact in terms of the further empowerment of the countries of the South,” he said.

Mbeki and Chávez described their meeting this week as part of the preparations for the Second Africa-South America Summit, to be held in Venezuela Nov. 24 to 29. About 50 heads of state and government from both regions are expected to attend.

The tangible outcome of the first visit by a Venezuelan president to South Africa was the framework cooperation agreement, and an invitation to the Petroleum, Oil and Gas Corporation of South African (PetroSA) to undertake oil and gas exploration in Venezuela.

Retired diplomat Edmundo González said that Venezuela had always been a staunch opponent of apartheid, the institutionalised regime of racial segregation in force in South Africa until 1994.

In 1983, the first five-yearly Simón Bolívar Prize for Democracy, instituted by Venezuela and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), was awarded jointly to King Juan Carlos of Spain and former South African President Nelson Mandela (1994-1999), who was at that time a political prisoner in his own country, where he spent 27 years in jail until his release in 1990.

The format of this visit was similar to other high-level meetings involving Chávez’s diplomatic efforts: fiery anti-imperialist rhetoric and statements in favour of cooperation and integration, followed by offers to state oil companies to join in the exploration and exploitation of the heavy oil in Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt.

This 55,000-square kilometre area of southeastern Venezuela is touted by Chávez as the largest crude oil reserve in the world, probably containing 1.2 trillion barrels of mainly extra heavy oil, of which at least one-quarter could be extracted.

PetroSA has “qualified as an operator to quantify and certify crude reserves in the Boyacá 4 block, an area of 700 square kilometres (and one of 27 such blocks in the Orinoco Belt),” said the South African company’s exploration manager, Julio Poquioma.

In reciprocity, PetroSA invited the Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) to participate in the construction of the Coega refinery in South Africa, which will require investments of 11 billion dollars up to 2014, and will have a processing capacity of 400,000 barrels a day.

PDVSA “was also invited to use the South African crude oil storage facilities in Saldanha, with a capacity of 45 million barrels, for potential exports on the way to Asia and the Far East,” Poquioma said.

PetroSA has apparently also offered to share low temperature natural gas liquefaction technology with PDVSA.

South Africa obtains more than half of its daily consumption of 540,000 barrels of oil by liquefying coal and gas.

Up to now, trade between the two countries has been limited – just 150 million dollars a year, according to Venezuelan Deputy Foreign Minister Reinaldo Bolívar.

He especially drew attention to South Africa’s water desalination technology, that Venezuela could use to alleviate water shortages on several of its Caribbean islands.

South African Minister of Trade and Industry Mandisi Mpahlwa said trade between the two nations could grow in the areas of agricultural development, especially in equipment for farming and construction, in which South Africa has strong companies.

Venezuela, a country of 28 million, has an estimated housing deficit of 1.8 to two million dwellings.

The framework accord signed by Foreign Ministers Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and Nkozana Dlamini Zuma of South Africa established a mixed ministerial commission for the areas of energy, mining, agriculture and other economic and social issues.

Chávez and Mbeki urged that the first cooperation projects be ready by year-end. They would ideally like to sign the agreements during the November summit in Venezuela, which the South African leader promised to attend.

Bolívar pointed out that after Cuba and Brazil, Venezuela is the Latin American country with the strongest presence in Africa, where it hopes to complete a total of 18 embassies.

Chávez’s diplomacy has been characterised by efforts to forge relations with countries other than Venezuela’s traditional allies in Africa, which are Algeria, Libya and Nigeria, the first African members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

“For us, Africa is like a good mother. We are among those in Latin America who believe that it is absolutely essential, in order to build and find our true road towards the future, to reunite with our deep roots,” said Chávez, shortly before the end of his visit to Pretoria.

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