CARACAS (Reuters) - Chauffeured around in a sleek black pick-up, the
head of Venezuela's oil industry, Major General Manuel Quevedo, last
month toured a joint venture with US major Chevron.
Flanked by
other trucks carrying security guards, Quevedo passed a handful of
workers waiting by an oil well cluster. They wanted a word with the OPEC
nation's oil minister and president of its state-run oil firm, PDVSA,
about the sorry state of the company.
Quevedo and his caravan drove on by.
"He didn't get out to ask workers about what is going on," said Jesus
Tabata, a union leader who works on a rig in the oil-rich Orinoco Belt.
"That way it's easier to keep saying everything is fine — and at the
same time keeping us on like slaves on miserable wages."
What's going on is that thousands of oil workers are fleeing the
state-run oil firm under the watch of its new military commander, who
has quickly alienated the firm's embattled upper echelon and its
rank-and-file, according to union leaders, a half-dozen current PDVSA
workers, a dozen former PDVSA workers and a half-dozen executives at
foreign companies operating in Venezuela.
Some PDVSA offices now have lines outside with dozens of workers waiting
to quit. In at least one administrative office in Zulia state, human
resources staff quit processing out the quitters, hanging a sign, "we do
not accept resignations," an oil worker there told Reuters.
Official workforce statistics have become a closely guarded secret, but a
dozen sources told Reuters that many thousands of workers had quit so
far this year — an acceleration of an already troubling outflow last
year.
About 25,000 workers resigned between the start of January
2017 and the end of January 2018, said union leader and government
critic Ivan Freites, citing internal company data. That figure comes out
of a workforce last officially reported by PDVSA at 146,000 in 2016.
Resignations appear to have increased sharply this year, said Freites, a
prominent union leader atVenezuela's major refineries in the northern
Paraguana peninsula.
"It's unstoppable," he said.
Many
of those leaving now are engineers, managers, or lawyers — high-level
professionals that are almost impossible to replace amid Venezuela's
economic meltdown, the PDVSA workers and foreign executives told
Reuters.
PDVSA and the Oil Ministry did not respond to repeated
requests for comment. PDVSA board member and pro-government union
representative Wills Rangel acknowledged the flight of talent is a
serious problem.
"The massive resignations are worrying," Rangel said in an interview. "In refinery operations, many have left."
The pace of departures has quickened with the rapid deterioration of
PDVSA's operations and finances — radiating pain through the OPEC
nation's oil-based economy, now beset with food shortages and
hyperinflation.
Quevedo — a little known former housing minister who replaced two
executives jailed for alleged graft — has further poisoned the
atmosphere, according to the two dozen sources who spoke with Reuters.
A stiff official who rose through the National Guard, Quevedo fired
many long-term employees upon arrival and urged remaining ones to
denounce any of their colleagues who oppose Maduro. He tapped soldiers
for top roles, giving the oil firm the atmosphere of a "barrack," two
company sources said.
"The military guys arrive calling the
engineers thieves and saboteurs," said a Venezuelan oil executive at a
private company who frequently works with PDVSA.
Quevedo is also
fighting to retain control of a company increasingly riven by turf
wars. The ruling socialists, once held together by late leader Hugo
Chavez, have succumbed to infighting under Maduro, a former bus driver
and union leader who lacks Chavez' charisma and has seen his budget
slashed with the decline in global oil prices.
Quevedo has
clashed with Venezuela's powerful Vice President Tareck El-Aissami. When
El-Aissami in February appointed a vice president to the PDVSA unit
that oversees joint ventures with foreign companies, Quevedo removed the
appointee and had him arrested, according to three sources with
knowledge of the incident, which has not been previously reported.
Quevedo is an ally of Socialist Party heavyweight Diosdado Cabello.
"There is a fight between Diosdado and Tareck for control of the
industry," said Hebert Garcia, a former army general who later broke
with Maduro and fled the country.
The political turmoil and mass resignations threaten Maduro's
government, which depends on oil for 90 percent of export revenue.
In the Orinoco Belt, some drilling rigs are working only intermittently
for lack of crews, said two sources there. In PDVSA's refineries,
several small fires have broken out because there are no longer enough
supervisors, two sources in the northern Paraguana peninsula said. Lack
of personnel in export terminals have forced some ports to cut back
working hours, according to two shippers and one trader.
Oil production in the first quarter of this year slipped to a 33-year low of 1.6 million barrels per day.
'When are you leaving?'
Jobs at PDVSA were once coveted for their generous salaries and
benefits, including cheap credit for housing. Now, many PDVSA workers
can't feed their families on wages that amount to a handful of US
dollars a month.
Rampant food shortages that caused Venezuelans
to report losing an average of 11 kilograms (24 pounds) last year are
particularly tough for oil workers tasked with grueling physical work in
often remote oil fields.
Some oil workers have resorted to
working odd jobs on the side, taking vacation to work abroad, or even
selling their work uniforms — red overalls — for money to eat.
Some workers in Lake Maracaibo, a production region near Colombia, can
no longer get to their jobs, according to two sources there. Transport
can cost up to 55,000 bolivars — equal to only 10 US cents, but close to
what some workers earn in a day.
"Now what we ask each other is: 'When are you leaving and for where?'"
said one of the Maracaibo workers, who like thousands of other
Venezuelans emigrated to Colombia this month. "Even in the bathroom,
people are talking about quitting."
'Who will be left?'
At
PDVSA headquarters, Quevedo often walks through the offices with a half
dozen bodyguards who clear his path, according to one current and one
former PDVSA employee.
The company's ongoing decay is evident
all around him in the once polished office tower: Broken elevators, poor
cafeteria food, empty desks in once-crowded divisions.
Maduro
has overseen the arrest of dozens of high-level PDVSA executives since
late last year, sometimes at the Caracas headquarters as shocked
employees looked on. Workers now feel watched by supervisors and are
loathe to make any business decision out of fear they will later be
accused of corruption, the sources said.
PDVSA workers, often visibly thinner, sometimes surreptitiously hand
out resumes to executives from private companies, according to a source
at a foreign firm.
In a rare protest last month, angry Oil
Ministry workers blocked access to the cafeteria, demanding better
benefits and chanting that Quevedo should resign.
Venezuela's foreign oil partners, which include California-based
Chevron, Russia's Rosneft and China's CNPC, are increasingly worried
about PDVSA's rapidly departing workforce, according to a half-dozen
sources at multinational companies operating in Venezuela. But as
minority partners, they have little or no sway over salaries and
management.
The foreign partners have also grown increasingly
frustrated with Quevedo, who initially asked for their suggestions on
fixing the state-run firm but now appears ill-disposed toward reforms,
the sources said.
At least one foreign company is considering
bringing in foreign specialists to improve its operations, one of the
sources added. But with crime, power cuts and shortages rampant in
Venezuela, luring foreign professionals is tough.
Still, in the Orinoco belt, some vow to stay in the belief that Maduro's government can't last.
"We can't give up," said Tabata, the union leader who watched Quevedo's
truck drive by that day. "This government is unstable and could fall at
any moment — and who will be left?"
(Reporting by Deisy
Buitrago and Alexandra Ulmer; Additional reporting by Mircely Guanipa in
Punto Fijo, Marianna Parraga in Houston, and Brian Ellsworth in
Caracas; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Brian Thevenot)
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