Venezuela says breaking oil strike, despite sabotage

www.alertnet.org NEWSDESK   20 Jan 2003 00:36

(Updates with opposition reaction in paragraph 7, 13, 18)

By Tom Ashby

CARACAS, Venezuela, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday that he was "winning the oil war" against striking workers, restoring crude flows, restarting refineries and reopening ports crippled by a seven-week-old stoppage.

But the leftist leader said he faced resistance from "saboteurs," who cut off gasoline supplies to Caracas, hacked into computers controlling oil facilities and finances and persuaded some trading partners not to deal with the South American nation.

The oil industry is the focus of a power struggle between Chavez, who blames corrupt elites for trying to stop his "beautiful revolution", and opposition groups who see him leading the country to Cuban-style communism.

Crude oil output, which fell from three million barrels per day (bpd) to about half a million earlier this month, had recovered to almost 1.2 million bpd by Sunday, Chavez said.

"We are winning the oil war... We could reach two million barrels per day before the end of the month," he said during his weekly television and radio show "Hello President".

Striking employees of the state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), who want to force Chavez to resign by cutting off his economic lifeline, estimated output was half the volume stated by Chavez at 650,000 bpd.

"Despite the figures given by Chavez, the oil industry is still paralyzed," said strike leader Juan Fernandez.

Calling himself the "oil commander," Chavez said he had ordered the Armed Forces to step up surveillance of the industry, which was the world's fifth largest exporter before the strike.

"If we have to use our last soldier to prevent more damage being done to the oil company, which is the economic heart of Venezuela, we will do it."

The government has sacked some 1,500 PDVSA employees, and is using retired staff, unemployed workers, the military and some foreigners to restore operations.

Strikers blame unqualified staff for a spate of accidents, including 38 oil spills totaling 4,500 barrels and seven fires in oil installations since the strike began on Dec. 2.

REFINERY RESTART

Chavez said two oil refineries paralyzed by the strike, El Palito and Amuay-Cardon, had begun to process crude oil and would together process 250,000 bpd later this week.

He said El Palito was already running 105,000 bpd of crude oil, but this was denied by El Palito's maintenance manager Giovanni Dixy, who said an attempted restart had failed.

At Amuay-Cardon, at 940,000 bpd capacity the largest oil refinery in the western hemisphere, Chavez said crude processing would reach 150,000 bpd by Monday from 50,000 now.

"That should relieve fuel supply, especially in the west," Chavez said.

Of 20 state-owned oil tankers, 16 were now operating normally, including eight crude carriers to supply Venezuelan-owned refineries in the United States, Chavez said.

Some foreign companies, which normally buy the bulk of Venezuela's oil exports, were still reluctant to send tankers to its ports, he added.

Shipping sources said crude exports fell slightly last week to 480,000 bpd, versus a pre-strike level of 2.7 million bpd.

Lines of cars and buses stretched for miles outside service stations in the capital on Sunday, after two days without any deliveries by road tankers.

"Until the refineries start working we will depend on imports of gasoline. We will be subject to shipping delays, sabotage to valves and pipelines," Chavez said.

Chavez said "saboteurs and traitors" had hacked into PDVSA's computer system, siphoning money out of company accounts illegally.

He said he would sue Intesa, a U.S. controlled information services company, for failing to keep computers running and withholding key passwords.

"What we have done is to cut off the systems and operate manually as we did 20 years ago," Chavez said.

"This is an electronic war... We are nationalizing the brains of PDVSA because they are in the hands of traitors and saboteurs," Chavez said.

Energy and Mines Minister Rafael Ramirez, who also appeared on the show, said a tanker carrying 1.5 million gallons of gasoline to Venezuela was diverted to another country after striking workers shed doubts on PDVSA's ability to pay.