A Russian-Vietnamese joint venture has produced its first oil from the Visovol oil field in the Nenets autonomous region of Russia.

The Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group -- PetroVietnam -- and OAO Zarubezhneft formed the Rusvietpetro joint venture to work the bloc in Russia's Nenets Autonomous Okrug in Arkhangelsk Oblast.

The Russian Federation-PetroVietnam Visovol oil field is in Lot 2 of four lots of an oil and natural gas exploration and exploitation project. The oil field's first project, in North-Khosedau, began production last September.

Following 10 months of construction, the Visovol oil field began production July 29, upping the project's output to 44,000 barrels a day.

This year Rusvietpetro expects to extract 1.51 million tons of crude oil (11 million barrels), worth $1.1 billion from the site, VietnamPlus news agency reported.

Closer to home, PetroVietnam is increasingly involved in the nation's struggle to assert its offshore national sovereignty against China's competing claims in the South China Sea.

PetroVietnam Chief Executive Officer Phung Dinh Thuc said PetroVietnam and its partners may buy $1.5 billion worth of Vietnamese oil and natural gas interests in the South China Sea from ConocoPhillips to help protect Vietnam's South China Sea's territorial claims.

Vietnam and the Philippines have repeatedly protested Chinese claims over the contested resource-rich area. Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia, which also claim territorial sovereignty, have complained of China saying it had rights over disputed islands.

This year tensions over sovereignty of the region escalated, with both the Philippines and Vietnam accusing China of cutting the seismic cables of ships exploring for oil and gas, threatening to ram vessels and firing upon fishermen.

China's disputes with the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei over the Spratly Islands' 750 islands are reinforced by Chinese maps showing an international boundary symbol off the coasts of the littoral states of the South China Seas. That despite the 2002 "Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea," which eased tensions over the contested archipelago. In addition China occupies some of the Paracel Islands also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan.

In attempting to diffuse the situation, Beijing has opted for one-on-one bilateral negotiations with each of the claimants rather than dealing with them within the context of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as well as rejecting suggestion of U.S. involvement in the process, given a number of the claimants' close ties to Washington.

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