MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Troops rushed to oil rich west Venezuela

Venezuelan troops with air and fluvial support plus elite intelligence units have been rushed to the oil-rich western region where sabotage actions have forced a considerable drop in production, announced Wednesday president Hugo Chavez.

Venezuelan Defence Minister General Jorge Garcia revealed that last mid April security forces activated the "Black gold 25" plan because "the situation in the west has become somehow tricky: materials, equipments have been lost or stolen to sabotage and we're facing a "silent" strike from some oil workers. We've dispatched helicopters, motorboats, vehicles and troops to protect the oil fields and detect saboteurs".

President Hugo Chavez claimed that the country's giant oil company PDVSA, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. in the Maracaibo Lake region was pumping 100,000 barrels a day below the specified volume of approximately 1,2 million barrels per day.

Venezuela' official oil production is 3,1 million bpd, but oil industry observers believe it's closer to 2,6 million bpd.

"There's people out in the west who insist in sabotaging us; we've discovered recurrent damage to valves, machinery and when this happens over and over, it's not an accident" blasted President Chavez adding that's why "we've sent the Army".

However, one of the causes could be labour unrest because contracts of 4,000 temporary workers expired April 30 and a number of them "will not be renewed", anticipated Venezuelan Energy and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez.

Another issue is the recent firing of 40 PDVSA Occidente managers, which, according to official spokesmen, brought to light "serious irregularities".

Some involve alleged corruption cases, while others are violations of collective bargaining rules. Apparently these difficulties have led to the shut down of five oil drills in Lake Maracaibo belonging to United States' Chevron Texaco.

Analysts believe the underlying reasons date back to 2002/2003, when the opposition led strike of oil industry skilled workers and management with the purpose of toppling President Chavez was defeated and PDVSA "saved" by hiring unskilled labour in support of the loyal workers and managers who kept the refineries going. Many of these unskilled labourers apparently are among those about to be declared redundant.

A Venezuelan National Assembly committee estimated that the PDVSA 2002/03 strike cost 10 billion US dollars in losses. However 18,000 of the 40,000 employees of the government owned company were fired.