Once a Cash Cow, Venezuela’s Oil Company Now Verges on Collapse<br />But crude exports to China have also fallen — by nearly 15 percent over the last year — as the quality of its oil has declined<br />and China has increased its purchases from the United States.<br />Before, people would be devastated if they lost a job at Pdvsa, said José, a worker in the Amuay refinery who also asked<br />that his last name be withheld because he feared retribution from his bosses for speaking publicly about the company.<br />Luis Giusti, who ran Pdvsa before President Hugo Chávez came to power in 1999, said Mr. Maduro’s purge was "more of a political campaign to see if they can have some breathing room because everything is going down the drain." "They have been managing the corporation for 18 years<br />and then all of a sudden they are saying now they are going to rescue the corporation," he added.<br />In recent years, the company has slashed the number of contractors employed at the refineries,<br />said Mr. Freites, general secretary of the Oil and Gas Workers Union of Falcón State.<br />But production in recent years has plummeted so far<br />that Pdvsa is no longer able to meet domestic demand for diesel and gasoline, forcing the country to import increasing amounts of both, including from the United States.<br />Francisco J. Monaldi said that With production going down and down, there is a spiral of less cash and less investment and less production,<br />Then an overworked pump in the same refinery failed, leaving operational only two of five<br />distillation units, a key part of the refining process, workers and union leaders said.
