Now, however, the behemoth, with $20 billion a year in oil sales and 40,000 employees, is in turmoil.
Its white-collar workers are locked in a bitter feud with the government of President Hugo Chávez, whose firing of the company president last month precipitated a rousing, public quarrel that has dominated the local headlines, caused a work slowdown and threatens to spill into a full- fledged strike. Such an event would be calamitous for a country where oil accounts for 80 percent of exports, most of it bound for the United States.
"This is a tragedy," said Luis Giusti, a former company president and now senior adviser for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "It is inconceivable that in this company people would go out and protest. They would have been fired right away. But this is a crisis situation." [End Excerpt]
Oil and communism don't mix: Venezuela faces energy standoff at petroleum company-[Excerpt]Parra, is known for radical nationalist views on the oil industry.
"He believes that the oil industry should be completely and fully controlled by the state, with no participation by private companies," said a former PDVSA top executive who requested anonymity.
Meanwhile, Fitch Ratings announced last month it was lowering PDVSA's credit rating from A to BBB, while Standard & Poor's said it would likely downgrade the company. Both agencies cited "excessive sovereign interference" as the reason. [End Excerpt]
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