Russian-Canadian miner Rusoro Mining's loss has become the Citic Group of China's gain as the Chinese state investment company on Friday sealed with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez an accord to develop the Las Cristinas gold project, along with other oil and mining projects.

Citic will help Venezuela advance the Las Cristinas gold mine, which, according to Chavez, could be "one of the largest reserves in the world," Dow Jones Newswires reported. Media reports said the Las Cristinas gold project holds an estimated gold reserves amounting to 17 million ounces.

The Las Cristinas gold project, located south of the Orinoco River, used to be operated by Rusoro Mining. But the mining firm was reported to encounter much difficulty advancing the gold mine due to bureaucratic, political and financing issues, according to Reuters News. Venezuela eventually cancelled in 2011 the permit it gave to the Russian-Canadian miner.

The signing ceremony between Chavez and the head officials of Citic Group, along with other Venezuelan government officials was broadcast live on Venezuelan state television, hours before Chavez flew for Cuba for a scheduled operation related to a tumor that was removed last year.

Apart from the Las Cristinas gold project, the Citic Group will also get involved in Venezuela's Petropiar heavy oil upgrader facility. The facility is currently operated as a joint venture between state energy company Petroleos de Venezuela, and Chevron Corp. No other details were provided as to how much extent of participation the Citic Group will have on the oil venture project.

China, which manages several projects in Venezuela from oil to housing and agriculture, extended billions of dollars in loans to the South American country through its various state firms in exchange for shipments of more than 400,000 barrels of oil a day.

The world's second-largest economy is inept in resources to support its power requirements.

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