PDVSA boosts Argentina?s shipbuilding industry

Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the Venezuelan state oil company last week closed on a deal for new tankers with Argentina?s Rio Santiago shipyard in Ensenada, 60 kilometers southeast of Buenos Aires. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez promised to order up to eight new oil tankers from Argentina during a surprise visit to the country’s ailing shipyards. The order would give a much needed boost to the Rio Santiago yard which currently employs 2,000 workers, down from a height of 7,000.

Chavez’s visit came hours after a two-day a regional trade summit in Puerto Iguazu in northeastern Argentina, during which Venezuela won admission to the South American trading bloc Mercusor as an associate member and Mexico was invited to negotiate entry.

Chavez said he wanted Argentine workers to help build seven or eight new oil tankers, some of them supertankers, as part of a new oil energy alliance the two presidents signed Thursday aimed at helping each other’s energy needs. Other Latin American countries may also join the Petrosur pact.