Venezuela oil chief says output climbing back
31 Jan 2003 20:40
(Recasts throughout) By Tom Ashby
CARACAS, Venezuela, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Venezuelan state oil company chief Ali Rodriguez said Friday he had restored half of the OPEC nation's strike-hit output and would impose a radical restructuring on the world's fifth largest oil exporter.
Rodriguez said there would be no return for thousands of fired Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) workers, whom he accused of sabotaging the country's oil industry and betraying the nation by trying to topple President Hugo Chavez.
PDVSA employees who were pardoned for their role in a failed coup attempt against Chavez last April had re-offended by organizing the strike, Rodriguez said.
"There has been a repeat of the behavior which definitely allows no going back," he told a press conference.
The PDVSA chief said he had fired almost every one of PDVSA's 700 senior executives for joining the strike. The total number of dismissed workers already topped 5,300 and could reach 6,000, he added.
Rodriguez, a former communist guerrilla, said PDVSA had grown fat during the past 20 years, consuming an ever larger share of oil income. He pledged to turn it into a vehicle for state revenue collection.
"PDVSA should be nothing more than an instrument to secure maximum benefit from the export of (oil) through its contribution to the treasury," Rodriguez told reporters.
He said production recovered to 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd), half of pre-strike levels, from a low of 150,000 bpd at the height of the strike.
He forecast output approaching normal levels of 3 million bpd by early March.
Almost two months into the opposition strike aimed at forcing left-winger Chavez to resign, the two sides have been providing conflicting accounts of the impact of the stoppage on South America's largest producer.
Strikers pegged output at 1.1 million bpd on Friday and said it would never reach pre-strike levels without a deal for elections that would also return them to their jobs.
They accuse Chavez of adopting dictatorial powers and leading the South American country towards Cuban-style communism.
DESTRUCTION
Striking PDVSA employees said Rodriguez was destroying Venezuela's economic powerhouse with his reforms.
"We are witnessing the destruction of PDVSA, which was ranked among the top global energy corporations before the strike," a dissident spokesman said.
They dismissed accusations of sabotage, saying they handed over installations in good working order and that unqualified strike-breakers had caused a spate of oil spills, computer crashes and refinery faults.
PDVSA's investment budget would be cut by 30 percent to adjust to the slump in export revenue, Rodriguez said, adding he would protect the key oil production budget.
He conceded that oil output capacity would probably suffer as a result of the cut.
Striking workers said Rodriguez planned to sell PDVSA's overseas businesses, which include the Citgo refining and marketing brand in the United States.
Rodriguez said some asset sales were planned as part of his restructuring, but declined to give details.
The PDVSA head questioned the motives of a strike that has pushed the country close to the brink of economic collapse and forced the government to impose currency controls.
"Can you imagine BP promoting a strike against the British Prime Minister because it doesn't like him? Or Exxon staging a strike against President Bush in the United States? Rationally it has no explanation," Rodriguez said.
"It is a case for psychiatric analysis. Maybe Freud has the answer," he added.
The strike has helped drive world oil prices up to two-year highs and sapped oil inventories at a time when Washington prepares for possible war with Iraq.
"MASSIVE" RETURN TO WORK
Rodriguez said a "massive" return to work by blue-collar workers and contractors at the oilfields meant output had risen much more quickly than he had expected.
Crude flows should reach 1.8-1.9 million bpd next week when four huge heavy oil upgrading plants, operated by foreign investors, are due to be restarted.
He reiterated PDVSA's aim to lift a force majeure on oil exports, a legal term meaning it can no longer fulfill sales agreements, by the end of February.
Striking PDVSA workers think he will have to keep some restrictions on exports all year, because of a complete collapse of PDVSA's trading and logistics team, and the computer systems used to execute sales.
Some of Venezuela's output was being shipped to storage tanks in the Caribbean for sale to customers still nervous about sending vessels to Venezuelan ports, Rodriguez said.
Before the strike, Venezuela pumped 3.1 million bpd of oil, and refined about one third of it. It supplied 13 percent of U.S. import requirements.
Rodriguez pegged refinery runs at 288,000 barrels per day, a quarter of normal levels, and said he would contract some foreign engineers from the United States to speed the recovery of halted units.