The agreements were signed here at the end of a meeting of a high-level bilateral commission, in a ceremony presided over by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, Zhang Ping.

“Twenty-nine accords” were reached during the meeting “but only 15 were signed” in the official ceremony due to time restraints, Chavez said during a speech in which the socialist and fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy hailed China as “a great power, but for good.”

The agreements included a one-year contract – signed by Venezuela’s PDVSA and Petro China – that calls for Venezuela to ship 500,000 barrels per day of crude and (related) products to China.

Venezuela is the fourth-leading supplier of oil to China and the Asian country’s fifth-biggest trade partner in Latin America and the Caribbean, officials in Beijing say.

At the beginning of this year, PDVSA said it was selling 331,000 barrels of oil per day to China and planned to increase that total to 1 million bpd within a period of four years.

Venezuela and China also signed a framework agreement to create a joint refinery venture in the Venezuelan state of Guarico and a deal to quantify and certify oil reserves in the Boyaca 3 Block of Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt.

State-owned China National Petroleum Corp. is participating – along with companies from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Spain, India and Iran – in an international process to certify the Orinoco Belt’s reserves, initially estimated at 234 billion barrels of heavy and extra-heavy crude.

Added to another 80 billion barrels in other parts of Venezuela, these reserves would push the country’s proven reserves to 314 billion barrels, the most in the world.

Caracas and Beijing on Tuesday also signed a framework agreement to set up and manage a joint venture to develop the Junin 8 Block in the Orinoco Belt. The goal is to produce 200,000 barrels per day of extra-heavy crude, according to an official report.

They also signed a memorandum of understanding that calls for Chinese companies to provide “offshore drilling services in deep- and ultra-deep (Venezuelan) waters.”

In a finance deal, state-owned aluminum producer Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana and the China Development Bank signed a contract under which the latter will provide a $1 billion line of credit to fund mining projects in southern Venezuela.