Last week I reported on the lack of transparency of the attempt to sell the 50% that PDVSA owns in the Ruhr refinery in Germany. Essentially, a letter of intent was signed with Russian group Alfa Group. This group will due the due diligence and afterwards a price will be agreed upon. Well, I find out yesterday that PDVSA’s second in command Aires Barreto, who retired three years ago from PDVSA and was brought back in 2002 to the company, actually went to work for this group when he retired from PDVSA. Is this a coincidence or what? Another interesting fact is that prior to this anyone retiring from PDVSA was never allowed to come back to the company. The reason was simple, in this manner those that were passed over for promotion and retired would not spend their time lobbying to get back when changes were later made at the company. Another achievement of the “people’s PDVSA”
And since we are on the subject of oil, Luis Marin, the president of CITGO was asked at a press conference two days ago if the company was for sale. Marin said that it was not, that CITGO was profitable and giving good dividends to the company. Well, the current President f PDVSA Ali Rodriguez and Chavez did nothing but criticize when they were in the opposition, why Venezuela even needed to own CITGO. Both questioned why the company had made these investments that lost money abroad, instead of investing it in Venezuela where our citizens would benefit. Moreover, I know for a fact (or here) that in March of 2003, PDVSA was shopping CITGO around but was unable to find a buyer. The reason for this is simple; CITGO’s operations are an extremely good match to the country’s oil production profile. The only other country that could be interested in it would be Nigeria.
The Devil's Excrement 
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