Bloomberg is reporting that Venezuela and Colombia may build a pipeline to the latter's Pacific coast to supply oil to the People's Republic of China.

They are also expected to discuss how to improve security on the 2,200-kilometer Venezuela-Colombia border after an incident in September in which six Venezuelan soldiers and an oil company employee were killed.  The incident prompted Venezuela to order 33 helicopters from Russia to guard the border.

Bloomberg says: Colombia and Venezuela will set aside border conflicts today as their two presidents consider strengthening economic ties, including construction of an oil pipeline that would help Venezuela diversify export markets.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, will discuss a plan to connect Maracaibo in Venezuela to the province of Choco, about 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) to the west on Colombia's Pacific coast, said Julio Cesar Vera, a Colombian Mines Ministry official.

The proposal would make it possible for Venezuela to shift exports away from the US, the buyer of more than 60% of Venezuela's crude oil, by offering a route other than the Panama Canal ... which can't accommodate the biggest tankers ... according to Vera, who is in charge of oil policy at the ministry in Bogota.  "This would allow Venezuela to connect with Asia without using the Panama Canal ... Asian investors, mainly China, have expressed interest in it.''

The proposed pipeline from Maracaibo to Choco would help develop Colombia's Pacific coast in addition to making it easier for Venezuela to sell oil to China, said Rangel.

"For Colombia this is an opportunity to develop the Choco and outlets to the Pacific which are very scarce and poorly developed,'' says Alfredo Rangel, executive director of the Bogota-based security & foreign affairs research firm Fundacion Seguridad y Democracia. "Colombia and Venezuela have very paradoxical and ambiguous relations; economically they are very integrated, but they share a border with many problems.''

Discussions to improve trade and economic cooperation are on the agenda for the one-day meeting in Cartagena (Colombia) which mark a shift for both countries, whose relations have been marred in recent months by cross-border incursions of Colombian insurgents and paramilitaries.  The Presidents will probably also discuss how to improve security on their common border according to Mauricio Baquero, head of the Americas department of the Colombian Foreign Ministry.

Colombian exports to Venezuela ... its second largest trading partner after the US ... surged to US$906 million in August from $385 million in the same month a year earlier, while imports from Venezuela jumped to $640 million from $446 million, according to government figures.

Ivan Orellana, Venezuela's governor to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said in an October 5 interview in Caracas that Venezuela would be willing to pay a higher cost to ship oil to China ... where demand is soaring ... to help it diversify oil supplies away from the US market. "This makes lots of sense as the biggest growing markets are China and Japan,'' said Hernando Vasquez, president of Bogota- based oil-services company FEPCO.  Shao Ying-hun, commercial attache at China's embassy in Bogota, said in a telephone interview that Chinese companies had been approached for the project. She declined to give any details.

Chinese oil demand is expected to increase 15% this year, according top the International Energy Agency. China and the US together account for a third of the world's oil consumption.  Nevertheless, attacks by Colombia's insurgents and paramilitary groups might impede the project while China may find oil imports from Russia or Indonesia more economical, according to Tim Evans, senior energy analyst at IFR Markets in New York. "Realistically, for better or for worse, the US and Venezuela are going to be married ... it can be a good marriage or a bad marriage.''

The US imported about 1.5 million barrels a day (bpd) from Venezuela in the first seven months of this year, according to the US Energy Department. State-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela said last month that Venezuela ships about 2.7 million barrels of crude and petroleum products a day. 

In Cartagena, Chavez (50) and Uribe may also agree on terms to build a $170 million, 105-kilometer natural gas pipeline that will allow Colombia to export gas to western Venezuela, where a there's a shortage of the fuel, Colombia's state oil company said in a statement on October 21. The two leaders signed a preliminary accord on the project at their last meeting in July. The pipeline would eventually allow Venezuela, South America's biggest natural gas producer, to export gas to Colombia and Central America once Venezuela has built pipelines from the western part of the country to its main gas reserves in the eastern part of the country.

Uribe (52) and his Panamanian counterpart, Martin Torrijos, agreed on November 1 to extend Colombia's gas pipeline network to Panama in a move that would allow Venezuela to eventually export gas to Panama, Central America and Mexico under the so-called Panama-Puebla plan.

The San Antonio de La Eminencia fortress (1678) has a military strategic advantage to defend against English, French and German invaders along Venezuela's eastern Caribbean coastline at Cumana.  It is also where General in Chief Jose Antonio Paez was held captive.                                       Photography: Santiago Padilla