Venezuela to send oil tankers to Argentina for maintenance

Ali Rodriguez, president of Venezuela's oil company PdVSA, said in Margarita island, that Venezuela will send two oil tankers to an Argentine shipyard for maintenance this year under a new bilateral energy cooperation pact.
Rodriguez announcement preceded a presidential summit between Argentina's Nestor Kirchner and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, and a bilateral conference with a group of Argentine-Venezuelan businessman, all to be held in Venezuela’s Margarita Island.

PdVSA will send the first tanker to Argentina's Rio Santiago shipyard in September, Rodriguez told. Details of the deal were being negotiated during the conference, Rodriguez added.
Earlier, during a visit of Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez to Argentina, Chavez promised to order from Argentina as many as eight new oil tankers.

During the visit to the Rio Santiago shipyard in Ensenada, 60 km (40 miles) southeast of Buenos Aires, Chavez said Venezuela "needs a fleet of national oil tankers and here we can build them."
Theshipyard work forms part of a new "Petrosur" cooperation agreement between PdVSA and Argentina's energy company ENARSA designed to help each country's energy needs.