29 de Diciembre, 2002 Unión Radio

En la edición 133 del programa Aló Presidente, el mandatario Hugo Chávez exhortó a los venezolanos a “cerrar filas” en la defensa de Petróleos de Venezuela y calificó a los gerentes de la corporación energética que se plegaron al paro como “traidores a la patria”. Asimismo, aclaró que no abandonará la presidencia por los designios de la "oligarquía". “Yo creo que nunca me voy a ir”.

“Esta conspiración contra Pdvsa es una conspiración contra la patria, no solamente es contra el gobierno, es una conspiración contra el pueblo, contra la sociedad, contra nuestros niños, contra nuestra educación, contra la salud, contra los sistemas de transportes, sistemas eléctricos, contra la vida del pueblo venezolano, una puñalada trapera le lanzaron a Venezuela, pero aquí estamos los patriotas defendiendo a la patria y salvando a la patria una vez más. A cerrar filas una vez más, en todas partes, en la defensa de la patria, en la defensa de Pdvsa, de las instituciones del estado, en la defensa de la sociedad, de la vida, contra estos conspiradores, traidores a la patria, traidores a Venezuela”, señaló.

Chávez exhortó a la Fiscalía y al Tribunal Supremo de Justicia a “poner mano dura” para poner las cosas en su lugar. “Cuando haya que apretar más la mano, las apretaré más, hasta que las instituciones lo permitan”, aclaró el mandatario, además de recordar que la traición a la patria está penada con cárcel.

Desde la planta de llenado de Yagua, estado Carabobo, el jefe de estado calificó al gobernador de esa entidad, Henrique Salas Feo, como saboteador. “Se ha convertido en un saboteador, así lo denuncio ante el pueblo del estado Carabobo, y ante el pueblo de Venezuela, el gobernador de Carabobo en vez de presentarse aquí para cooperar, para ver en qué podía cooperar, no, incluso utilizó algunos grupos policiales de Carabobo para tratar de parar las gandolas violando su responsabilidad. Un gobernador tratando de apuñalear a su propio pueblo”.

Chávez acusó a Salas Feo de negarle la comida al pueblo y de participar en las conspiraciones en su contra. “El gobernador de Carabobo estaba montado en la conspiración del golpe de estado de abril y sigue montado en la conspiración que trata de quebrar a Venezuela, y en vez de estar preparando para garantizar a los pueblos de Craabobo. la alimentación, no, él quiere que la gente no coma, que la gente no tenga gasolina, que los niños no vayan a clase (...) pero por encima de él aquí está el pueblo”.

El jefe de Estado también felicitó a los gerentes de Pdvsa que se prestaron a la paralización de la industria y pidió apoyo para ellos y los militares de la Fuerza Armada Nacional. Por su parte, el nuevo gerente del complejo refinador Paraguaná, Iván Hernpández, y el presidente de Fedepetrol, Rafael Rosales pronunciaron unas palabras en respaldo a la reactivación de la industria petrolera.

El mandatario felicitó al capitán López Peña, quien asumió el control del buque Pilín León y se refirió irónicamente a los anuncios de los gerentes de Pdvsa sobre los riesgos de maniobrar sin experiencia la embarcación.

Interrumpiendo su discurso cada vez que pasa una gandola cargada de combustible, Chávez cuestionó que la alta preparación de algunos gerentes de Pdvsa se haya volcado a "sabotear" la industria.

Afirmó que al igual que hace 100 años cuando "fuimos saboetados por buques alemanes e ingleses, hoy sufrimos un autobloqueo que esconde intereses extranjeros".

Asimismo, señaló que ayer 28 dediciembre, día de los inocentes, estuvo tentado hacer una broma y decir en cadena nacional que renunciaría. No obstante, aclaró que "nunca lo hará por designios de la oligarquía".

Posted on Fri, Dec. 27, 2002 STEVENSON JACOBS Associated Press

KINGSTON, Jamaica - Jamaica received 370,000 barrels of oil from Ecuador on Friday in an emergency shipment intended to help the country avoid a shortage caused by Venezuela's general strike.

In another consequence of the Venezuelan crisis, an oil refinery in Curacao that is one of the world's largest, shut down production Friday, company and union officials said.

Curacao's Refineria Isla, which receives most of its oil from Venezuela, is no longer processing gasoline, jet fuel, propane or oil lubricants, after shutting down its 37 refining plants, union president Elvis DeAndrade said.

The refinery, which employs more than 1,000 full-time, will not resume production until it can guarantee Venezuelan shipments of crude oil. The last two shipments of crude arrived last weekend, and there are no plans for more, the company has said.

In Jamaica, current oil reserves in Jamaica are lower than usual, enough to last only four more weeks, said Christopher Chin-Fatt of the state-run oil company PetroJam.

"This crude is coming just in time," Chin-Fatt said. "We have enough, but not as much as we'd like."

The shipment was originally scheduled to arrive Wednesday, but was delayed for undisclosed reasons.

Before the strike, Jamaica received 50 to 60 percent of its oil from Venezuela, or roughly 400,000 to 450,000 barrels per month.

Chin-Fatt would not disclose the cost of Friday's shipment. A similar-sized shipment is scheduled to arrive from Mexico in mid-January.

"But that's a little close," he said. "We're trying to advance that date."

Industry experts predict prices could soar higher as the strike continues in Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter.

The strike, now nearly a month old, has crippled Venezuela's oil exports as opposition leaders try to force President Hugo Chavez to resign or call a referendum on his rule.

Raymond Wright, managing director of the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica, called an oil shortage in Jamaica unlikely, but said a prolonged strike would hurt the island. Since the strike, he said, Jamaica hasn't received benefits previously enjoyed under a long-standing agreement with Venezuela, such as no-interest loans and credits on shipments.

"Now we have to pay for all the oil up front," Wright said.

In the meantime, Wright said Jamaica would continue to buy oil from other countries.

By Andy Webb-Vidal - news.ft.com Published: December 30 2002 4:00 | Last Updated: December 30 2002 4:00

Cane in hand, Alí Rodríguez cuts a valiant but ghostly figure as he steps gingerly into the control room of the Puerto La Cruz oil refinery in eastern Venezuela.

Inside, a dozen visibly exhausted yet determined technicians rise to their feet and applaud, momentarily turning away from monitoring the console that is ensuring Venezuela's only operational refinery continues to distill a trickle of fuel.

As head of state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), Latin America's biggest company, Mr Rodríguez rallies the night shift. "The striking managers thought they were the only ones who can run this industry. But you are showing the world that they have failed. The workers are winning the battle now."

Such fighting talk is characteristic of the frail 65-year-old. He is a former guerrilla fighter, reputedly one of the last to lay down his arms at the end of Venezuela's small-scale leftwing insurgency of the 1960s.

Forty years later, Mr Rodríguez faces perhaps his most challenging struggle: to restart what a month ago was the world's fifth-largest oil exporter but is now a virtually paralysed network of derricks, pipelines and oil terminals.

"Armed guerrilla action is one form of combat I've left behind, but this is a war to save democracy," he says as he reaches up with his cane to tap the pilot's window of the executive jet on the runway of an abandoned airfield near the refinery.

A long-time friend of Cuba's Fidel Castro, Mr Rodríguez likens the tightening economic noose that is the oil strike with the long-time US-imposed trade embargo on the Caribbean island.

An anti-government strike by some 30,000 employees at PDVSA, aimed at pressuring populist President Hugo Chávez into resigning and calling early elections, has almost completely severed oil exports from Venezuela since the beginning of December.

Until then, PDVSA and local joint ventures with multinationals were producing 3.1m barrels a day of crude oil, of which 1.45m went to the US, accounting for 15 per cent of daily US crude imports.

But daily output last week was below 200,000 barrels, a reduction that, combined with expectations of an impending US-led military attack on Iraq, has pushed oil prices above $30 a barrel, a 15-month high.

Output of refined products from Venezuela has also plunged, starving the domestic market of fuel and depriving the US of 10 per cent of its daily gasoline imports. Puerto La Cruz was yesterday refining 68,000 b/d, a third of the plant's capacity.

So severe is the strike that Venezuela, which sits on the largest oil reserves outside the Arab world and where drivers normally fill up their tanks for about $2, this weekend took the unprecedented step of importing fuel, from Brazil, to help ease the shortage.

Mr Rodríguez is making the domestic market a priority to keep potential civil unrest at bay. But striking managers at PDVSA say importing fuel will only delay a fresh supply crunch by afew days as Mr Rodríguez does not have the personnel at his disposal to restart the industry.

Yet Mr Rodríguez is adamant that he, and loyalist employees and contract workers, will triumph over the striking managers, many of whom took part in a similar but much shorter stoppage, which triggered the coup that ousted Mr Chávez for 48 hours in April.

"It was an error to have trusted these managers after April and not to have taken disciplinary measures," Mr Rodríguez said.

"They are causing huge damage to the economy and it's causing problems beyond our shores. But the managers' defeat will be the defeat of the political opposition. PDVSA will be stronger after this episode." Ninety executives have been dismissed in the past week.

Radiating confidence, Mr Rodríguez says he is preparing to take on tanker crews from abroad, including the US, to replace sailors from Venezuela's merchant navy, who have been among the most disruptive backers of the strike.

He claimed at the weekend that crude oil output had been ramped up to 1.5m b/d, and that PDVSA would return to pre-strike levels by January 15. However, few neutral observers believed his claims, and he was forced to withdraw them, although there were signs at the weekend of an increase in output.

Luis Marín, recently appointed head of PDVSA's eastern division, said restarted oil wells in the region were yesterday producing 150,000 barrels. Together with a smaller volume from Lake Maracaibo in the west, total daily crude output may now be at 250,000 barrels.

The strikers are firm that they will not return to work until Mr Chávez resigns. The president has ruled out bowing to pressure from those he describes as nothing but "saboteurs trying to bring down the government".

Oil industry analysts say the days ahead will be a crucial test of Mr Rodríguez's will to pull both PDVSA and the Chávez government back from the brink, and that it will be weeks, or even months, before full PDVSA output resumes.

"There is a growing realisation right now that this is going to last, there is no negotiated solution in sight," said Fareed Mohamedi, chief economist at PFC Energy, a Washington-based consultancy.

Vice-President José Rangel, whose comments are often interpreted by local political analysts as an accurate indication of the opposite, said the situation in the country and the oil industry was "excessively normal".

Nonetheless, despite the guerrilla-hardened efforts of Mr Rodríguez, a paralysed oil industry may indeed be "normal" for some time to come.

Gulf daily News - The voice of Bahrein www.gulf-daily-news.com

CARACAS: As petrol trucks rolled out behind him, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said last night he was beating back a strike choking the oil industry, but hundreds of thousands of protesters demanded he step down.

"Those we are fighting against are immoral and they are wrong. They are lost and we are assured of the road to a great victory for Venezuela," said Chavez, applauding as strike-busting fuel trucks drove off from the Yaguas petrol distribution centre near Caracas.

But the opposition-backed general strike which has paralyzed much of the country for 28 days and has almost stopped shipments from the world's fifth-largest oil exporter showed no sign of easing as several hundred thousand flag-waving anti-Chavez protesters marched through Caracas.

"They're going to have to kill us to stop the people.

"Absolutely no one can stop this strike," one of the protest leaders, union boss Carlos Ortega, told the crowd.

The opposition strikers, organised by business and union leaders, demand Chavez call elections, accusing him of abuse of authority and corruption.

Support for Chavez, whose term is due to run until 2007, has plunged, even among his poor powerbase which he has wooed with cheap loans and a folksy style spiced with the fiery rhetoric of class warfare.

— By Matthew Robinson

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Oil shipments by the world's No. 5 crude exporter rose in the past week but were held to less than 20 percent of November levels by a four-week strike led by foes of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Government efforts to break the strike helped boost oil exports to about 520,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the week ending Dec. 29, according to data from state oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) and independent shippers.

In the previous week, the government dispatched 260,000 bpd of crude, including one cargo destined for a domestic port. Venezuela exported about 2.7 million bpd of crude and products in November.

Half of the crude sold in the past seven days, about 260,000 bpd, went to the United States, which imported 1.4 million bpd from Venezuela in October.

But Venezuelan oil exports for December have averaged just 230,000 bpd, helping push U.S. oil futures to a two-year high of $32.76 a barrel in the past week.

Striking PDVSA workers have said the government's ability to maintain even limited oil sales will be severely hindered once domestic storage tanks are drained, as production has fallen to levels that will not support exports.

"Production is 200,000 bpd," opposition PDVSA executive Horacio Medina said in a television interview on Sunday. The OPEC member nation had produced 3.1 million bpd in November.

Many executives and managers from PDVSA, as well as field and refinery workers, tanker captains, pilots and dock crews have joined the stoppage aimed at removing Chavez from office.

BATTLE FOR OIL

But Chavez has refused to resign or call early elections and maintains that he is winning the battle for the oil industry, which provides about half of government revenues. Dissident PDVSA employees have said that the government will not be able to bring operations back to normal levels using replacement workers.

"In the last four days, we have moved seven and a half million barrels of oil and within one week we will be producing more than a million barrels (per day) of petroleum," Chavez said on Sunday during his weekly television and radio show, "Hello, President."

According to data supplied by PDVSA President Ali Rodriguez and confirmed by independent shipping reports, Venezuela has exported about 2 million barrels of crude in the past four days.

Rodriguez told reporters at a late Saturday press conference that the government had managed to increase oil production to between 600,000 bpd to 700,000 bpd, adding that oil output figures he quoted to reporters on Saturday, indicating production was 1.5 million bpd, were incorrect.

The PDVSA chief said oil production would hit 2 million bpd by the end of January, and that the 130,000 bpd El Palito refinery would restart operations this week.

Rodriguez said late Saturday that production from four foreign-backed extra heavy oil projects shutdown by the strike would also be returned in the next week. The four projects, which partner oil majors such as ExxonMobil <XOM.N> and ChevronTexaco <CVX.N> with PDVSA, produced over 400,000 bpd of extra heavy oil last month.

But his statements were disputed by foreign oil officials.

"I don't think so. There are two many things that need to take place," said an official with one of the projects who asked not to be identified. "Who is going to work the plants? Who is going to bring ships in?"

Foreign oil companies have not been loading cargoes because vessels attended by uncertified crews would face insurance risks. Only ships chartered by PDVSA and U.S. refining affiliate Citgo have sailed.

Chavez said on Sunday that he had fired 90 PDVSA executives and managers taking part in the stoppage and that others were under investigation.