Chavez seeks $50 a barrel oil price peg -BBC

LONDON, Apr 3 (Reuters) Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez wants a deal with consumer countries to lock in a crude oil price of a barrel, which would boost the size of its official reserves, he told BBC television in an interview to be broadcast on Monday.

According to an advance report of the interview in the Guardian daily, an agreement at that price could allow Venezuela to count its deposits of heavy crude oil, which are economic only at prices around a barrel, as part of official reserves. The country says that would put them ahead of Saudi Arabia.

This would allow Venezuela, currently the world's fifth largest exporter, to demand a big increase in its production allowance within the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the Guardian reported.

''We have the largest oil reserves in the world, we have oil for 200 years,'' Chavez was quoted as telling the BBC's Newsnight programme. '' a barrel - that's a fair price, not a high price.'' U.S. crude oil is currently above per barrel, close to its record high of around .

Venezuelan Energy and Mines Minister Rafael Ramirez told Newsnight in a separate interview that his country planned to ask OPEC to recognise the uprating of its reserves to 312 billion barrels, compared with Saudi Arabia's 262 billion, at a gathering of the OPEC delegates in Caracas next month.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration website, Venezuela has some 77.2 billion barrels of proven conventional oil reserves and up to 270 billion barrels of extra-heavy and bitumen deposits.

This heavy oil has to be turned into synthetic light crude before it can be refined.

REUTERS CS RS1632