Venezuela’s government will this year try to boost income tax on Orinoco Belt heavy crude oil projects to 50 per cent from 34 per cent, Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said.

Ramirez said the ministry will submit to Congress a proposal to make the tax equal for all oil projects as Venezuela's 2001 hydrocarbons law demands.
Currently, the country’s income tax law has a clause allowing four extra heavy crude projects in the Orinoco Belt to pay a lower rate.
Venezuela’s legislature is controlled by government supporters likely to pass the latest effort by the leftist government of President Hugo Chavez to squeeze more revenues out of foreign oil companies. Chavez is pouring billions of oil revenues into projects for the poor.
US oil heavyweights Chevron and Exxon Mobil, Total of France and Britain’s BP are among companies with stakes in Orinoco projects, which are joint ventures with Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA.
The projects pump about 600,000 barrels per day of oil which is later synthetically upgraded.