Russia’s Rosneft OJSC agreed to pay $500 million to Petroleos de Venezuela SA to increase its stake in their Petromonagas crude-processing joint venture. The deal will increase Rosneft’s stake in the upgrader that converts heavy oil into synthetic crude to 40 percent, PDVSA, as the Venezuelan state-owned company is known, said in an e-mailed statement, confirming earlier comments by President Nicolas Maduro. Rosneft previously held 16.7 percent, and PDVSA owned the remainder. “The $500 million in new investment for production in the Venezuelan oil industry comes amid a crisis,” Maduro said during a broadcast of a ceremony where Rosneft and PDVSA officials signed the deal Friday in Caracas. Venezuela, holder of the world’s largest oil reserves, is enduring its deepest recession in a decade after oil prices slumped amid a global supply glut. In a bid to counter shrinking government revenues, Maduro this week raised gasoline prices for the […]