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May 25 (Bloomberg) -- Japan has agreed to insure stakes in a Venezuelan oil field for Inpex Corp. and Mitsubishi Corp., the first major venture covered by the state insurer since President Hugo Chavez seized Japanese commodities assets last May.

Nippon Export & Investment Insurance, known as NEXI, will insure the companies’ combined stake of 2.55 percent in the Carabobo-3 project, Kazuhiro Ishikawa, the director of the agency’s legal group, said in an interview in Tokyo. The involvement of Chevron Corp. as operator and 34 percent owner was a key factor in the decision, he said.

Chavez’s policy of nationalizing commodities assets hasn’t stopped explorers including Chevron, Repsol YPF SA, Eni SpA and China National Petroleum Corp. from competing for stakes in the Orinoco Belt, where Carabobo-3 is located. China last month agreed to lend Venezuela $20 billion and form a venture to pump crude from the Orinoco, one of the world’s biggest oil reserves.

“Oil explorers are going more aggressively into countries where investment risks are high like Venezuela and African nations to search for vast reserves,” said Yasuhiro Narita, an analyst specializing in Japanese trading houses at Nomura Securities Co. “NEXI’s insurance will improve the investment environment for Japanese companies in Venezuela.”

NEXI has made an exception to its own rules for the Carabobo project. In general it doesn’t insure oil and gas projects in Venezuela because the agency has rated it ‘H,’ its highest rating for investment risk and a designation also given to North Korea.

Asset Seizures

State-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA will hold 60 percent of the project, and a joint venture between Inpex, Mitsubishi and Japan Oil, Gas & Metals National Corp. will hold 5 percent. Suelopetrol CA, a PVDSA unit, will hold 1 percent.

Output is scheduled to start in 2013 and will rise to 400,000 a day in 2016, Venezuela’s Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said in February.

The insurance covers almost all losses incurred when a foreign country seizes assets and buys out a Japanese company’s share for less than the original purchase costs, Ishikawa said.

Chavez ordered the takeover of the hot-briquetted iron and other metals industries last May, part of a policy of nationalizing foreign oil, utilities and metals companies. Among the producers was Complejo Siderurgico de Guayana CA, or Comsigua, in which Kobe Steel Ltd. held a 21.3 percent stake.

JBIC Loan

Kobe Steel, Japan’s fourth-biggest mill, has been negotiating a contract for the sale of its stake back to its partner, Gary Tsuchida, a company spokesman, said in Tokyo. NEXI, which insured the investment, would cover possible losses, Ishikawa said, without detailing the likely cost.

The Japan Bank for International Cooperation considered backing out of a planned $1.5 billion loan to Petroleos de Venezuela after the seizures, a person familiar with the situation said in June. The following month the two countries reached an agreement to accelerate energy cooperation.

An official insurance contract will be signed after the two companies make the first payment for the Carabobo project in a few weeks, Ishikawa said.

Mitsubishi has an informal agreement from NEXI to provide the insurance, Shunsuke Nanami, a spokesman, said by phone from Tokyo, while declining to comment on details. Inpex is considering taking the insurance, said Kazuhiko Itano, spokesman, declining to provide more information.

The Orinoco venture is the first major project NEXI will cover since the asset seizures last year, Ishikawa said. Since then, NEXI has provided insurance for an unspecified number of short-term sales contracts by Japanese companies to Venezuelan buyers, none valued at more than 500 million yen ($5.5 million), he said.

--Editors: Alex Devine, John Viljoen.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tsuyoshi Inajima in Tokyo at tinajima@bloomberg.net; Shigeru Sato in Tokyo at ssato10@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Amit Prakash in Singapore at aprakash1@bloomberg.net

Sourced from www.businessweek.com