The lawsuits the Venezuelan State is likely to file against the foreign oil firms that are entering into joint ventures with Venezuela will be decided by June 26th, the date when such joint ventures are scheduled to see the light, said Minister of Energy and Petroleum Rafael Ramírez on Thursday.

"All of this (alleged contract breaches incurred by oil multinationals) has been perfectly singled out, in order to decide whether we are going to get involved in a judiciary dispute," Ramírez, who is also the CEO of state-run oil conglomerate Pdvsa, told the official TV station VTV.

President Hugo Chávez last May 1st -during the ceremony to take control over the firms operating at the Orinoco oil strip- explained that such multinationals were expected to inject vapor to optimize oil extraction, but they did not, "thus breaching the agreement they initialed in the 1990's and seriously hitting Venezuelan patrimony. Therefore, they could face lawsuits."