companies that have 
qualified for the concessions, 26 are foreign.
The government is also moving to open up offshore exploration and production 
of free gas in the Paria and Plataforma Deltana regions in waters bordering 
northeast Venezuela, where officials suspect 40 Tcf to 60 Tcf are waiting to 
be discovered. 
Jose Pacheco, vice minister of energy, told Dow Jones Newswires that the 
government wants to start the pre-qualification process sometime this year. 
Trinidad, he said, has been aggressively tapping reserves in the area, some 
of which may extend into Venezuela territory. The government has been talking 
with authorities from the island to reach some understanding for the 
exploitation of the region, he said. 
Rafael Ramirez, president of Venezuela's gas regulator, said state-oil 
company Petroleos de Venezuela SA (E.PVZ) hasThe Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
BOMBAY, India (AP) - A top official of the U.S. energy concern Enron Corp. 
was authorized to issue a termination notice to pull out of a $3 billion 
power project in western India, the largest foreign investment in the 
country, a newspaper reported Friday. 
The project has been in trouble since December when the government of 
Maharashtra state demanded renegotiation of the price being charged for power 
from the project.
The board of the Dabhol Power Co., the Indian subsidiary of Enron, met in 
London on Wednesday and authorized the company's managing director to issue a 
preliminary notice to terminate the project, billed as the world's largest 
natural gas fired power plant, The Times of India reported. 
"The board has given powers to the