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Caracas (AFP / RIA-Novosti 0ANA) - Venezuela and Russia have reached an agreement for the plan's first nuclear power plant construction in Latin American countries, said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Saturday.

"We are ready to begin designing the first nuclear plant project," Chavez said in a joint press conference in Caracas, after talks with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Putin arrived in Venezuela Friday, to conduct negotiations on various issues, including military technical cooperation and joint energy projects.

The Putin-Chavez meeting, the Russian and Venezuela signed an intergovernmental agreement regarding the participation of Russian National Oil Consortium in the development of oil reserves and Hunin Ayacucho-3-3.

National Oil Consortium (NNK) of Russian companies are working in Venezuela, including the giant Russian energy company Gazprom, the state-owned oil producer Rosneft, the Russian joint venture oil company TNK-BP, the UK, Surgutneftegaz and Lukoil.

NNK have previously agreed to pay a total of one billion dollars for the right to take part in the project Hunin-6, which will produce up to 450,000 barrels per day in 2017.

Venezuela is one of the largest oil producing country in the world, with around 87 billion barrels of conventional oil reserves in 2008.

This is a non-conventional heavy oil reserves, the largest. Most of those reserves are located in the Orinoco oil belt.