Major General Manuel Quevedo has enacted a series of controversial measures that oil industry experts, PDVSA employees and contractors, and even everyday citizens say are pushing the once-profitable and respected state oil company towards ruin.
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Major General Manuel Quevedo has enacted a series of controversial measures that oil industry experts, PDVSA employees and contractors, and even everyday citizens say are pushing the once-profitable and respected state oil company towards ruin.
An alleged crackdown on graft in Venezuela, seen by critics as an effort by President Nicolas Maduro to consolidate power, has sown panic across the country’s energy industry and all but paralyzed state-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, according to people at the company and across the sector.
Venezuela’s state-run oil firm, PDVSA, is increasingly delivering poor quality crude oil to major refiners in the United States, India and China, causing repeated complaints, canceled orders and demands for discounts.
As Caracas struggles to contain an economic meltdown and violent street protests, Moscow is using its position as Venezuela’s lender of last resort to gain more control over the OPEC nation’s crude reserves, the largest in the world.
Staff at PDVSA's once gleaming headquarters complain that many elevators are out of service, the bathrooms lack toilet paper, and their cars are broken into in the parking lot. Scarce paper and ink are diverted to make political posters.
Venezuela's state-run oil company, PDVSA, has spent at least a decade trying to build business ties and boost shipments to refineries in India, where crowds once welcomed the late socialist leader Hugo Chavez with cries of "Viva!"Now, the ailing firm is being forced to slash sales to its crucial trade partner.
Venezuela's oil workers are pawning goods, maxing out credit cards, taking side jobs, and even selling their uniforms to buy food.
When night falls over western Venezuela, armed gangs known as "pirates" sometimes ride boats into muggy Lake Maracaibo to steal equipment from oil wells.