Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has confirmed that his country has reached a deal to develop a further three oil fields with Belarus.

The two countries reached a development agreement last year after Mr Chavez met with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, though up until now the joint venture has been limited to a production capacity of two million tons of oil a year.

However, after meeting in Minsk for the third time, the two presidents agreed to triple this rate through working together on three new fields across the Latin American country.

According to Belarusian state-run oil company, Belorusneft, through cooperating with Petrolera BeloVenezolana, it has produced 370,000 metric tonnes of oil over the first five months of the year.

The office of Mr Lukashenko also announced that the two countries will continue to "strengthen cooperation in the area of energy, while it likewise confirmed that the total volume of trade and economic exchanges over the first half of 2008 was double that of the same period in 2007.

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