MINSK, December 5 (RIA Novosti) - A Venezuelan-Belarusian joint venture could produce some one million metric tons of oil in 2008, Belarus's first deputy prime minister said.

A joint venture for prospecting seismology will begin work in December 2007, Vladimir Semashko added.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is expected to visit oil-rich Venezuela this week to advance deals on joint oil production in the Latin American country as a way to diversify Belarus's oil imports following Russian price hikes.

Belarus's state-owned petrochemical company Belneftekhim, which refines mainly Russian crude, plans to start producing and refining oil in Venezuela and to sell it on to Latin American markets.

Lukashenko, dubbed "Europe's last dictator" by Washington, said ahead of his visit on Tuesday that his country was looking forward to future oil projects in Venezuela, Latin America's largest oil producer and the seventh biggest oil producer in the world.

The United States put Belneftekhim on a business blacklist in mid-November, freezing the company's assets under U.S. jurisdiction.

The outspoken Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chavez, visited Belarus last July, and announced that he and Lukashenko, both fierce critics of the United States, had established a "strategic alliance" to counter "hegemonic" capitalism.