There is something going on at PDVSA and it is hard to get a precise
handle on it. This is no longer the case of one hand not knowing
what the other one is doing, this is something much more complicated
than it seems. This appears to be some sort of struggle. Why or for
what is harder to tell, but we should know soon enough.
The signals are all there, last week The Minister of Defense talks
about the CIA sabotage of PDVSA, another General talks about a silent
boycott. Then, there are rumors that 12,000 workers are going to be
fired. But hey! You can’t fire people in Venezuela today, there is a
firing freeze! Then it truns out that the workers are mostly
pro-Government. Chavez speaks everyday on nationwide TV after coming
back from Cuba. The Minsiter of Energy says these people are not being
fired, their contract is simply not being renewed. Little difference
under Venezuelan legislation after three months and these workers have
been there since last summer. Were they really hired only to buy tehir
votes?
But what does it mean 12,000 people are not being renewed? They went
from needing them all to needing only a few? What is the justification?
Then, suddenly, much likes his order to bury Tascon’s list, Chavez
recognizes for the first time in two years that oil production is below
the OPEC quota of 3.1 million barrels a day. This is major, this is
new. Why now? Chavez acknowledges only a 100,000 barrel drop, but a
union leader comes out and says
it is 300,000 in the West alone, only 16 of 69 barges are functioning
there, barely 11 of the 23 drills are in the fields and only 86 boats
out of the 250 they have work at this time.
And just as you think this may be healthy, to acknowledge reality. To
say PDVSA, our very livelihood, is in trouble, let’s try to fix it, all
powerful Minister of Oil and President of PDVSA Ramirez says:
“Despite troubles, we are fullfilling the OPEC quota”. Hold it! Didn’t
I just hear the almighty, the all powerful Hugo the XVIth. say the
opposite? Hugo says he militarized PDVSA, Ramirez says this is just the
daily papers making trouble. Who is on first?
Is Ramirez being set up? Is the military mad at the destruction of the
PDVSA capabilities? Or at the corruption there? Are they looking for a
way to bring back at least some of those fired in 2003? What’s teh
struggle about?
I have no idea, but something is afoot.
The Devil's Excrement 
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