A Caracas meeting between Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has seen agreement reached on Russian access to development rights of the Hunin-6 oil field.

The National Oil Consortium (NNK) of Russian oil companies will pay $1 billion for access to the oil field. Prime Minister Putin said that the project will provide a good opportunity for developing Russian-Venezuelan relations as well as to supply years of oil.

“Hunin -6 is one of the largest deposits in the world. We are grateful to Venezuela's leadership for the right to develop it. We've got a 40 percent stake in the project and Venezuela has 60. We think the work here will last a long time, I would think 30 or 40 years. With peak production reaching 450 thousand barrels a day.”

Putin said that the first payment of $600 million has already been made and an additional $1 billion could be offered to develop other fields in the country.

Russian companies Gazprom, Rosneft, TNK-BP, Surgutneftegaz and Lukoil, will work together in developing one of the largest oil fields in the world.