—Mick Gregory
The Houston Chronicle’s Editorial Live Journalists at blog Houston have finally focused on an enemy in our midst, Hugo Chavez, the Stalinista dictator who heads Citgo.
In February, El Presidente Chavez threatened to cut off all crude oil exports to the United States if the U.S. government went over the line in its opposition to Chavez’ leftist regime.
Chavez seems to go through with what he says, just last week he received about $1.5 billion from Houston’s Lyondell Company and new expensive long-term contracts for Lyondell to buy the heavy sour crude that their refinery needs to crack and boil down the tar-like crude to turn it into gas and plastics.
Chavez now has a lot more money for his political ambitions such as helping Danny Ortega win election in Nicaragua.
“It’s not where we’ve been,” Citgo proclaims. “It’s where we are heading that can make a world of difference.”
“That’s what we’re afraid of,” said The Chronicle blog team.
Do they get it yet? We have a communist-owned gas company that thumbs its nose at our EPA laws, helps pump up the price of crude with it’s open market sales force. By the way, The Chronicle should ask for a tour of that operation, Citgo has iris scanners which only allow select ‘traders’ on the floor. Plus, Citgo puts on some window dressing to look like an American company. They have TV ads running on the news opinion shows, with heavier weighting on FOX. Chavez and his Citgo money machine has tried to buy favoritism in Chicago buy offering to sell fuel at half-price to CTA. The mayor and council turned him down. They also met with the Chicago White Sox manager, Ozzie Guillen and signed him up for some publicity. Remember all the odd shots of Ozzie flashing the “V” and saying “Go Venezuela!” I thought Houston was Citgo’s home? BTW- Citgo leases its space in Houston for its administrative staff. Most Citgo employees remain out of Texas. All of Citgo’s top executives have been “let go.” Instead, “friends of Hugo The Boss Chavez” are in the executive suite. Jerry Thompson, the last real executive was let go around the time of the new Chavez proclamations were announced.
Citgo reportedly “donated” a large sum of money to Houston’s transit authority. Unlike Chicago, they grabbed it and not much was made of it. Could Chavez be planning to supply some major American transit organizations with fuel, then pull the rug out from under them later?
I know I won’t be buying my gas at Citgo. And it’s harder to do so for the communists among us, now that Valero is quickly converting more than 300 Citgo stations in South Texas to its San Antonio-based Valero brand. I hope the city of Houston didn’t give much away to get the adminstrative offices to move from Tulsa.
Some 95 percent of the employees who made the move, moved to Cinco Ranch.
3 responses so far ↓
Greg Michael // August 30, 2006 at 1:29 pm |
This just in from an informed citizen of Venezuela — Since his return from his lengthy trip to China, President Hugo Chávez has been making much of Venezuela’s increased penetration in that market, as though it were a tremendous achievement. Not only that, when he was barely off the plane, he was talking about his plans to create a multipolar world with a view, among other things, to challenging the hegemony of the United States.
The President also announced a project aimed at increasing Venezuelan oil exports to China from 150,000 b/d to 500,000 b/d in the short term. There is nothing more absurd than replacing a reliable buyer practically on one’s doorstep with one as far flung as China. Sending oil to China costs Venezuela $11/barrel, whereas it costs only $3/barrel to send it to the United States, a difference of $8/barrel. That means that, if they manage to sell 1 million barrels a day to China, Venezuela will lose earnings of $4.3 billion a year just from the difference in freight costs.
The campaign to increase ties with China at the expense of the United States is what is behind the sale of CITGO’s 41.5% share in a refinery in Houston to Lyondell Chemical Co. Energy. Petroleum Minister Rafael Ramírez justified this sale, in part, because of a long-term contract under which they were under the “obligation to sell” oil at a discount, whereas now, with the new contract, they are apparently selling oil “at its fair price.” However, Lyondell Chemical, in a public announcement, claimed that, had that new contract been in force since the beginning of 2005, as the owners of the refinery, they would have earned $241 million more in 2005 and $190 million more so far in 2006, which suggests that the contract scorned by Minister Ramírez was not so disadvantageous for Venezuela.
But the figures have no relevance whatsoever for President Chávez, as the criteria that prevail in his running of the country are political not economic.
Source Veneconomy at http://www.vcrisis.com
Moe Banks // July 11, 2007 at 8:56 pm |
You short-sighted xenophobes will be among
the first to perish when your savior’s prophesy
“the meek shall inherit the earth” comes to pass.
The starving third world masses who have for
generations adapted to adversity will outlive
you all.
Mick // July 11, 2007 at 9:31 pm |
You may be right. Then what will they do with it?
You must be a member of the turd world.