President Vladimir Putin met his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez in the Moscow Kremlin Friday for talks that focused largely on deepening cooperation in oil and gas production. The sides signed agreements on the joint production, processing and sale of oil and agreed to pool their efforts on the world market. "Russia and Venezuela have excellent and extensive resources and serious experience and may be regarded as leading world oil exporters," Putin said. "By combining our efforts we can make great advances together and help other countries that look to us for cooperation in energy," added Chavez. Specific projects include the planned exploration of deposits located along the Orinoco river, which will be formalized in a contract for signing next year. Russian oil interests were represented by Lukoil president Vagit Alekperov while Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez signed the agreement for Venezuela's PDVSA national oil and gas company. Other topics were the development of trade and economic relations and cooperation in investments and the military-technical sphere. Venezuela intended to buy a large batch of Russian helicopters as well as small arms in the near future, Chavez told reporters after the talks. "We are also interested in buying a large consignment of weapons for anti-tank and air defence," he said. The Venezuelan president arrived in Moscow Thursday on a two-day visit. It was his fourth round of consultations with Putin since they first met in 2000 at the United Nations. ---SP 2259 Local Time 1959 GMT
