Good afternoon distinguished colleagues and workers of the PDVSA's staff. Welcome all of you to PDVSA. Oil workers of the New PDVSA have enough reasons to celebrate. I must share with you a hug sent by president Chávez. I want to send my greetings to the General Manager of the Paraguaná Refining Center (CRP), members of his staff, representatives accompanying me, the Vice-President of Refining, Exploration and Production, the Head of the PDVSA's Human Resources Department, Héctor Pernía, and to all of you colleagues who made this beautiful event come true.

This morning we were dealing with issues concerning PDVSA and those enemies of our nation, of our people; those who insist on spreading a campaign which intends to smear our enterprise. I want those people to come and see the face of the New PDVSA. We are battling on many fronts. Two days ago, complying with president Chávez's instructions, we traveled to Houston to represent our country, put PDVSA back to the place it deserves, and negotiate with the purpose of bringing back to our country the wealth belonging to it and make known to the world what is really happening here in Venezuela .

Yesterday we held an extraordinary meeting in Zulia where we addressed problems Venezuela faces at present. It was a wonderful meeting, full of patriotism and indignation arouse from the continuous attacks against our people and our enterprise.

I appreciate your presence here; these moments leaving a trace and stimulating all of us. Thanks all of you.

I must say that this board is working very hard. I have to acknowledge the tremendous patriotism and commitment to our nation, our president Hugo Chávez Frías, our enterprise and our people showed so far by our colleagues, besides their extraordinary technical capacity. We have held marathon meetings. Despite the many issues still pending, this board has hit a record as it has made over 300 resolutions. At the end of 2002, we defeated our enemies and their oil stoppage-sabotage against our enterprise and our people. In 2003, we were totally focused on this issue; then 2004 was devoted to maintain our enterprise operating while dealing with relevant political events. I want to remind all of you your participation in the Santa Inés Battle. Venezuela has been struggling against sabotages and coups, but it has been able to overcome obstacles, lies, defamation and economic sabotages being on its way. Here we are stronger than ever, following a real leader, our President, within a State starting again from scratch after the collapse of the Fourth Republic ; we are jointly building new institutions out of the current new Republic, a new country.

During one of those marathon meetings, two months ago, the Human Resources Committee was asked to address an issue presented by the Paraguaná Refining Center . I have to highlight Jesús Luongo's initiative; we were presented a proposal on the absorption issue. I did not count on all details regarding this situation; they made a great presentation; I was shocked at the fact of PDVSA being a company with an almost exploiting relation with its workers, nearly a slave-labour relation; having workers within a contractor relation for more than 20 years. Since this Board discusses every issue with president Chávez, he was as shocked as we were, therefore immediately ordering not only the approval of the CRP's issue but also the implementation of the measure nationwide. It represents an act of fairness and acknowledgment of people's work. Then we celebrate a meeting between members of the Board and the CRP's management. From these meetings and the decisions made within each of them, we proposed this act of fairness and acknowledgment, then giving all of you an identification card, giving you total support, watching your faces tanned with work, working hands, Bolivarian voices. I want to thank all of you for the time spent on building a new nation; this represents the basis of the contribution you have already made to create a new society.

Each of you must have a story of an untiring work. Each of you has a life story through which peoples' feelings can be recognized. This is the reason why the New PDVSA lies on workers' shoulders. You have been tested in uncountable battles, not only the battle fought during these 15-20 years of permanent work which have served to improve expertise you all already had, but also the definitive battle whereby you win and achieve freedom and equity of the people of Venezuela. We tested ourselves during the oil stoppage-sabotage; we defeated coup groups which had assumed total control of our company. You guarantee PDVSA's life, our sovereignty of administering resources of the State, of its people in the name of their benefit. Oil belongs to Venezuelans. PDVSA guarantees, within its battle field, day after day, at its wells, with its launches, tank facilities, refineries, that it is really fighting. The only way of helping our people jump forward and come out of the abysm of exclusion, ignorance, poverty, and a premature death is that of overcoming the terrible contradiction of living in a really rich country, having the first oil reserve of the planet, and fairly administering its wealth. You are playing a historic role. We have switched from coping with issues concerning individuals only to deal with a collective welfare of our people; whether regarding our nation or a social and collective task to be developed. That's why I say, thanks president Chávez for allowing us to be at forefront of oil issues.

This act shows the ethic of this new enterprise, a new ethic of our government, of the State. What kind of society we previously lived in, and what kind of enterprise PDVSA was to maintain in permanent contracted working situation thousand of workers just because it did not want to undertake its social commitment. What kind of enterprise it was to hire outsourcing to not getting involved with workers; an enterprise preferring thousands of workers fighting to death for the same position within the company. What kind of enterprise PDVSA turns to be which counted on corrupted union leaders who negotiated positions and to which workers had to pay tribute to enjoy the benefits offered by the company. We are demolishing that old ethic. To all of us, to PDVSA, to the Venezuelan government, you do not represent an obstacle and danger on our road. Workers are allies; you are our allies.

We visited Cuba , and you already know that a facility is going to be opened down there, news that caused quite a media stir. You are informed about social programs we have been developing jointly with Cuba , like the miracle of the Missions plan. Yesterday we made some estimates: Venezuela has over 100,000 sight impaired citizens since people have no money to pay for a no-more-than-1 hour surgery. What kind of society we were living in which let a child become sight impaired.

By means of Barrio Adentro Mission, over 90 million people with no chances of getting medical attention or with no access to medicines have been treated. We have given support through Mercal, and also through Ribas Mission; those people, our people under our protection; next May 20 th , the first 24,000 students will graduate from school, out of which 10,000 will be sent to Cuba . This means having a new country; this leads to the construction of a new and fair society for all Venezuelans, for those workers who make their voices be heard, who have the right to vote and participate; for those living in misery, those who are lost in the countryside, in wards, those who are now given back the power and have a leader who represents all of them, and a State representing their interests. PDVSA cannot remain out of reach; it is now at the forefront in the battle field.

This day reminds me the day I got my diploma from school. I congratulate all of you. There are enough reasons to be happy. This is just the beginning of much more. I started making reference to the years 2002, 2003 and 2004. 2005 is the year to make things work, to jump ahead on the basis of our performance and our oil policy. Workers must be informed, have to discuss about sovereignty matters. President Chávez started a battle to achieve full oil sovereignty, and now we begin to bring back to the country the control of our resources. We are dismantling plans to surrender our resources to transnational capitals, to obtain our royalties from the Orinoco Oil Belt, to stop projects harming the interests of our country, to place PDVSA back into its position as main partner in projects currently at an initial stage, to be paid taxes.

We discovered that operative agreements did not pay taxes; 16 out of the total reported net loss. We are fixing all this with your support. We count on a strong enterprise able to carry out projects whether there is not any other company willing to do so.

Yesterday, we flied over Maracaibo Lake and confirmed everything was rightly working. We walked around all facilities, and activities were carried out in a calm manner. We saw the lake and the disaster caused by oil activities: junk left behind everywhere. We will change our relation both with Venezuelans and the environment. We will attempt to clean our Lake to prevent PDVSA from harming the environment. The year 2005 has plenty of battles to be fought and some decisions already made.

I warn everybody: there has been spread a campaign against PDVSA once again, a campaign eventually directed to president Chávez. Headlines of the written media aim to weaken the confidence our country deposited in its main industry. I assure all of you that we are making an untiring effort to defeat corruption. We mentioned this when we took over. In Zulia State , at one point, we fired 30 managers to then fired 10 more. There are plenty of proved corruption activities reported to the Office of the National Attorney General; practices of deviation of State resources already under internal controls. Nobody has full freedom within PDVSA, neither Bolivarian workers nor any other worker. The new PDVSA rejects corruption; it does not accept any form of political corruption. Due to such regulations, we must face attacks from Members of the National Assembly who have a dark record.

There is a situation to cope with. Since the beginning of 2005, we have been facing difficulties in production activities in Western Venezuela, caused by structural problems of Maracaibo Lake which, together with a lack of managerial decisions, have resulted in a cut in production estimated in 100,000 oil barrels. At the end of the first quarter, we applied corresponding sanctions. President Chávez made it known to the country; a situation which will test once again our workers. Neither estimates of El Nacional journal (300,000 oil barrels) nor those calculated by Gente del Petróleo (500,000 oil barrels) are right. There are no excuses; we must take situation on our hands and seek solutions to them. It represents one more test to our workers who have had more difficult experiences. They want to manipulate different issues such as oil use and union mafias which are devoted to torpedo the democratization of work process. They cannot longer extort families; it's over. We have applied the collective convention whereby employment quotas were substituted by a system of democratization of work (SISDEM). We will start discussions on this issue, and you can make a contribution by discussing among you and spreading information about it. All workers can be registered, free of charge; we will evaluate who belongs to our Missions; how many participate of our programs and who do not; and how many cooperatives will be created. Other 18 offices will be opened aiming at giving shape to that registration process, and works to be contracted will nurture from that system. Through that enormous headline saying we have fired 12,000 workers, they intend to create a destabilizing atmosphere between PDVSA and its workers. That is a lie. We have rescinded some contracts, and now we are requiring 4,400 more, but we are not living apart the rest; they are registered. Oil workers must be united; cohesion and political unification are needed.

I want to congratulate all of you as you solved the situation we faced on March 30 th . I want to congratulate you and applause the work you did and the way of overcoming that difficulty.

Every worker will be included. There are always comments and oil experts making reference to the cost of such procedures. I do not care about the amount of money to be invested. We owe a lot to our communities. We have been working for more than 60 years and time arrives to make PDVSA transform from a transnational company nothing to do with communities, into a company related to its workers, communities, the environment; we are under a definitive process of change and we will keep showing it to everyone.

You are workers enjoying rights within the organization. You have not only tremendous privileges but also enormous responsibilities.