In December 2002, PdVSA, Royal Dutch Shell, and Mitsubishi signed a preliminary agreement to develop the Mariscal Sucre LNG project, located on the Paria peninsula in northeastern Venezuela. The Upstream component of the $2.7 billion Mariscal Sucre consists of four offshore fields, Rio Caribe, Mejillones, Patao, and Dragon, with combined reserves of 10 Tcf and estimated production of around 1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d). About 60 percent of this production would supply an LNG export terminal, with the rest going to the domestic market. However, in August 2005, PdVSA announced that it would develop Mariscal Sucre itself and, for the time being, not go forward with the LNG export terminal. PdVSA will initially develop the Rio Caribe and Mejillones fields for the domestic market. However, PdVSA maintains that there are sufficient Natural Gas reserves to support an LNG export terminal in later stages, incorporating the Patao and Dragon fields. Any such terminal, though, would likely not start operations before 2009.