#paraguana peninsula

[ughfuckingbiotypical]

Paraguana peninsula Biotope

Target Species: Green Bottle Blue Tarantula (Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens)

Location: Paraguana peninsula, Northern Venezuela, South America

Habitat Type: Desert

I know this blog's been quiet, since I started it, but I'm finally back with my first biotope summary and its even one I've recently built! It was finally time for me to upgrade my Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens Vlad into her adult enclosure.

This is not a care guide, if you are looking for information on care for this species there are sources at the bottom of this post written by tarantula keepers much more experienced than me. I used many of them when I was originally deciding if this was a species I would like to keep.

The target species of this enclosure is a docile species of new world tarantula. They boast dark blue and rusty orange coloration, and once settled into an enclosure, are typically outgoing enough for you to see and enjoy them. They are a burrowing species that will build a thick web around the entrance, so providing plenty of substrate and structure to anchor to is key. They also don't require conditions that are terribly difficult to maintain. Unfortunately they are classified as critically endangered in the wild, potentially making the captive bred population of this species an important resource.

Original Photos: young specimen with juvenile coloration, 21 Mar. 2023 (Left). Vlad almost fully transitioned to the adult coloration, 14 Feb. 2024 (Right).

The setup I built is very simple. The only animals are the target species and cleanup crew (isopods, not habitat accurate). All foliage is artificial, as I didn't want to potentially stress her with a grow light to maintain plants that she will likely web over anyway (the LED above her cage will only be turned on for viewing). So this outline will have much less specific information on the flora and fauna that occur in this habitat outside of the target species than future outlines will.

I had some trouble finding photos I was sure were habitat from Paraguana that weren't wide shots, let alone photos of C. cyaneopubescens in its natural environment, but based on photos like this one:

Cerro Santa Ana, Paraguaná Peninsula, Venezuela - by Jujovar2010.

And a couple of short descriptions, this habitat seems to be characterized by dense shrubs and barrel cacti. The deserts of this region are also characterized by sand dunes, but C. cyaneopubescens reportedly (and in my experience) likes to anchor their webs around plants. So It is unlikely one would willingly spend much of its time out on open sand dunes.

Desert on the Way to Paraguaná- by R, Frank Morales, 12 Oct. 2009. Flickr

With that information, my observations on Vlad's habits, and the materials available, this is the setup I've put together.

Original Photo, 9 Sept. 2024.

I kept things simple, as this is one of my smaller terrariums inhabited by an animal, and much of it will eventually be covered by webbing as well. I included branches of various sizes to simulate the underbrush and a hollow piece of cholla wood mounted in a vertical position. The cholla wood is not a biotypically accurate variety of cactus, but it provides a convenient naturalistic hide for the tarantula. I also chose faux grass that would mimic the look of dormant desert grass. I may make some adjustments when I get the chance, specifically replacing the current water bowl with one that fits into the scape better.

Bonus cryptid spotting:

Original Photo, 12 Sept. 2024.

Image Descriptions in Alt

Sources under cut

David, Zach. “Chromatopelma Cyaneopubescens 101: Care, Enclosure, Temperament & More.” Beyond The Treat, 22 Aug. 2019, https://beyondthetreat.com/chromatopelma-cyaneopubescens/.

“Green Bottle Blue Tarantula Care.” The Tarantula Collective, https://www.thetarantulacollective.com/caresheets/chromatopelma-cyaneopubescens. Accessed 23 July 2024.

Greenbottle Blue Care Sheet | Tarantula Husbandry | TARANTULAS.Com. http://tarantulas.com/caresheets/C_cyaneopubescens.html. Accessed 12 Sept. 2024.

“Greenbottle Blue Tarantula.” Wikipedia, 25 Feb. 2024. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Greenbottle_blue_tarantula&oldid=1210157315.

Greenbottle Blue Tarantula: GBB Care, Facts & Species - More Reptiles. https://www.morereptiles.com/greenbottle-blue-tarantula/. Accessed 12 Sept. 2024.

Klich, Szymon. “Chromatopelma Cyaneopubescens: Green Bottle Blue Tarantula.” Spiders World, 18 Dec. 2023, https://spiderswrld.com/chromatopelma-cyaneopubescens-description/.

Paraguaná & Médanos de Coro: Where Desert Meets the Caribbean | LAC Geo. https://lacgeo.com/paraguana-peninsula-medanos-coro. Accessed 12 Sept. 2024.

Paraguaná Peninsula | Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Venezuela, Araya Peninsula | Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/place/Paraguana-Peninsula. Accessed 12 Sept. 2024.

R, Frank Morales. Desert on the Way to Paraguaná. photo, 12 Oct. 2009. Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/frankmorales/4006822182/.

Will. Green Bottle Blue Tarantula Care Guide and FAQs. 22 June 2022, https://thespiderblog.com/green-bottle-blue-tarantula-care-guide-and-faqs/.

big shout out to the Zotero extension for making compiling the sources for this thing I do in my free time MUCH easier

[herburu]

Cabo San Román, ubicado en la península de Paraguaná, en el estado Falcón. El punto más al norte de Venezuela. Conoce #Venezuela . . . #venezuela #CaboSanRoman #paraguana #falcon #turismo #desierto #mar #peninsula #faro #blueSky #sand #arena #monumento #patrimonio #viaje #pasion #live #amor (en Cabo San Román) https://www.instagram.com/p/BoNaROsnYZP/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=ky95gyzoytg4

[v1989chapman-blog]

Cabo San Román. #peninsula #paraguana #falcon #cabo #cabosanroman #venezuela #night (at Cabo San Román)

[belissadiaz]

Paraguaná Gastronómica

Hace unos días participé en el primer evento de Paraguaná Gastronómica, una nueva organización enfocada en  rescatar y enaltecer la cultura gastronómica en la península, pero buscando el twist de lo actual. Con un desayuno venezolaniiisimo, este primer evento fue un abreboca para más que vendrán, desde cursos especializados de cocina a conversatorios con chefs de distintos rubros culinarios. El…

[anthonysurreal]

Abre la ventana y deja que pase la puerta o el silencio se estanca en el pueblo. #Pueblonuevo #Paraguana #Falcon #Peninsula #Venezuela #Visionrechazada #igers #instalike #instagram #ig_falcon #igersfalcon #silencio #olvido #ventanas #puertas #estancia #vacio #oscuridad #infinito

[gabyaguilarsmedia-blog]

By The Marble Steps

She had beautiful brown skin. The woman was wearing dusty black leggings and a printed shirt, that, even then, had been out of style for quite some time. If you had asked me eleven years ago I would've told you she was a "grown up", around thirty. Only now as I look back do I realize she couldn't have been more than seventeen.

It was a sweltering afternoon, as they often were in the Paraguana Peninsula of Venezuela, sun mercilessly heating the sand to a degree that would prompt mothers to yell after their children, chastising their lack of shoes. This being my home town I was accustomed to these relaxed weekends, I'd grown up on the beach. I assume much differently than the way in which that woman had grown up on the beach.

My parents had been invited, as they always were, to stay the weekend at a family friend's beach house. For me, this meant getting to see the children who were as close to cousins as friends can be. We didn't have camera phones back then, but I presume that if we'd had, they would be filled with pictures of us lounging by the pool, taking rides on the yacht while wearing hideous fluorescent life jackets, crying over swallowing sand after a rigorous sand ball fight,  you would see six healthy children in imported Gymboree pyjamas splayed out in sleeping bags after showering off salt water, chowing down cookies as the SpongeBob movie played softly in the background. Being six was not particularly rough. However, the following afternoon would change that, in a way.

A couple of houses down from our place, lay a towering, two floor beach mansion. Painted in the shade, pretentious white, with windows tinted reflective blue.This house belonged to a family which I was aware came from even more money, however, I'd been purposefully uninformed of where that money had come from. The adults drank champagne and their mouths were too full to talk about it anyway. Sometime during our stay we had been invited over for a brunch barbecue. The women went inside to gossip, the men roasted meat beside the seemingly Olympic sized pool, the children filled water balloons and talked about how 3rd grade was treating them, as they attended the same private school of well to do Catholics. I don't remember why i'd gone back to our beach house, perhaps to get the god forsaken sandals my mother was so adamant I wear, lest I burn my feet or cut myself on broken beer glass, but alas, I walked there and back by myself.

I remember trying to squeeze my way through the kiosks and the small palm trees that lined the ocean front properties, and as I reached the white marbles steps that lead to the gate of "pretentious white mansion #2", I saw her shadowed by the palm tree.

She was sweating, and looked the same as everyone in my town, who was not European white, did. Heavy lidded eyes, worried brows and dark, spotted skin. The woman was looking left and right, her hair wrapped in black netting, calloused feet bare, and strewn over her shoulder was a tattered rag, baby blue with a little brown bear embroidered in the corner. She dabbed her creased forehead gently with it as she let out soft groans. And in the sand, on a towel in even more dire conditions lay her baby. Impossibly small, eyes impossibly wet, mouth impossibly wide as he wailed his frustrations out to the sun. As if trying to explain that he was already, unfairly naked and unfairly hot and unfairly frustrating to his young mother. I looked at her, and she looked at me and it was the first time I saw her clearly.

That afternoon I marched up the marble steps, stayed silent and ate the barbecue that the men insisted they'd worked so hard on. I said goodbye to the rich classmates I wasn't friends with, and later that night my beloved "cousins". I gathered my toys, piled into my mother's Blue Ford Explorer and closed my eyes as we drove home. I looked out the window and the beach I'd seen ten thousand times was a whole new world. Instead of seeing the kiosks with the cute necklaces , I saw the bearded men, packing the kiosks up. Instead of seeing the unknown children in the cheap swimsuits whom I often befriended on the beach, I saw the way they always seemed to be unattended and talked differently, and their eagerness to borrow my plastic pail and shovel. Instead of thinking about how much I hated putting on sandals so I wouldn't cut myself on beer bottles, I started thinking about who smashed them into the ground. I looked back at my memories that night and the beach filled with them, and they weren't regular and commonplace anymore, they weren't people at the beach, each one of them was a person. And each one of them was too young and too hot and working too hard to sell me a puca shell bracelet.

Being a child, the heavy feeling in my stomach made me cry that night, and by the next beach weekend it came back in feeble flashes, until the next weekend when it didn't . It's never truly left me, the cruel juxtaposition of it all. Even now as an aware, educated, young adult, who's experienced more things than that six year old girl ever thought she would,  I still don't understand why that boy didn't have a diaper to defecate in but the women inside stuffed manicured fingernails into Louis Vuitton bags . I still don't understand how I, a child, saw everything so clearly and felt so compelled to do something but couldn't. I looked at the world for the first time and stared at everyone I knew in disbelief. As if asking "do you know about this!?", "do you see this!?". I think about that woman a lot, every time someone tells me that I should've kept my ten cents because I'd be feeding a drug habit by giving it away to the man with the guitar in the train station. Even being significantly less privileged now than I was back then, I think about her a lot, about how even now, the gap between us is still so wide.

It only takes one person, one five second look, to shine a light on the things in plain sight. 

[spanishmain]

Frederick Albion Ober, The Knockabout Club on the Spanish Main, 1891

Page 45: The “Venezuela” was the steamship we sailed in on our return voyage. But I must not anticipate, for we have not yet reached the Spanish Main, and have not yet finished with the Southern Sea we were sailing on in the last chapter. First let me mention some of the passengers we have on board.

Page 51: In the olden times, when sea pirates and buccaneers sailed the Caribbean, and made it lively for the coast settlements of Cuba, florida, and the West Indies, the “Spanish Main” was a name of mysterious and terrible import. It was applied to the stretch of coast lying between the Island of Trinidad and the Darien. The third voyage of the great navigator, Columbus, first brought this region to the attention of civilized man, and in the year succeeding, in 1499, Amerigo Vespucci made a successful trading voyage to this country of savages and precious products.

Page 53: The year 1499 was one of the most eventful in the last decade of that century so pregnant with momentous events. Not the least remarkable of the Spanish voyagers tot he New World was Alonzo de Ojeda, who had with him, as adventurer, Americus Vespucius, whose claim to distinction everybody is familiar with. Whether or not he was entitled to the peerless place the cosmographers assigned him, or whether, indeed, his was the name bestowed upon our continents, I will not argue; but his was the most richly rewarded of any voyage of that period. Coasting the country now known as the “Spanish Main,” with many strange adventures and frequent detentions from the friendly natives, Ojeda and his crew finally sighted an island bearing the aboriginal name of Curacoa. The Indians inhabiting here were of great stature, but not so large nor so numerous that they were not soon exterminated, sharing the fate of all the islanders of the Caribbean Sea.

Page 178: At the Port-of-Spain, the steamers of the Orinoco meet and connect with those that cruise along the Spanish Main. We lay in the harbor though several days, but at last, one hot and sweltering afternoon, we changed from the coast to the river steamer. And what a glorious night succeeded to that long hot afternoon! Just at sunset, as the belt of crimson cloud lay girdling the horizon, I caught my first sight of the new moon of May (or of April, as you may choose to call it). It was just the faintest crescentic line of silver, drawn against the blushing sky, — a hint of argent only on the roseate field. It might have been the maiden moon of the universe, so pure it looked, so chaste, and almost spirituelle. Below it, at an angle, gleamed goldenly a lustrous planet, beneath which yet again a silver star.

Page 189: It is now many, many years since the last pirate sailed along the Spanish Main, but two hundred years ago this coast was the resort of the most bloodthirsty crews that ever cut a sailor’s throat. It might hurt the English pride to call the great Sir Francis Drake a pirate; but the Spaniards, who suffered from his depredations, styled him nothing less. His great field of operations was on the coasts of the Caribbean Sea, and especially the Spanish Main. Hawkins and Davis were also engaged in piratical warfare upon the cities and commerce of the King of Spain.

Page 207: While we are approaching the Peninsula of the Paraguana, let us again recur to the old sea-rovers, whose exploits we have alluded to. There has always been a belief that the successful pirates left large deposits of buried treasure somewhere along the Spanish Main, and quite recently we found an account of an expedition in search of the gold supposed to have been buried by Morgan himself. Here is the notice, as we found it: —

Page 239: Here, friendly readers of the “Knockabouts,” we will take our leave, promising to conduct you next year though a country more interesting than event hat of the Spanish Main. And as for adventure, my word for it, you shall have your fill.

[chloe-jayde]

Venezuelan shopkeepers alarmed by Maduro's latest economic moves

New Post has been published on https://worldwide-finance.net/news/commodities-futures-news/venezuelan-shopkeepers-alarmed-by-maduros-latest-economic-moves

Venezuelan shopkeepers alarmed by Maduro's latest economic moves

© Reuters. A man sells fish in a street market in Caracas

By Mircely, Guanipa and Anggy Polanco

PUNTO FIJO/SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (Reuters) – After Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s 60-fold increase to the minimum wage, storeowners on Saturday wrestled with an anguishing decision: Close up shop or hit customers with steep price hikes at the risk of sinking the business.

In a set of sweeping announcements that shocked many Venezuelans, the socialist Maduro on Friday ordered a 96 percent currency devaluation, pegged the bolivar currency to the government’s petro cryptocurrency and boosted taxes as part of a plan aimed at pulling the OPEC member out of its economic tailspin.

The measures especially spooked shopkeepers already struggling to stay afloat due to hyperinflation, government-set prices for goods ranging from flour to diapers, and strict currency controls that crimp imports. Many stores were closed on Saturday as owners hunkered down to consider the implications.

Economists warned that some companies would go under, unable to shoulder the massive increase in monthly minimum wage from 3 million bolivars to 180 million bolivars, or roughly $0.5 to $30. That will likely increase unemployment and further fuel mass emigration that has overwhelmed neighboring South American countries.

Jhonny Herrera, 41, owner of a hardware store on the windswept Paraguana Peninsula in northern Venezuela, said he would have to fire two employees because he cannot afford to pay them, leaving him with just one worker. When Venezuela was enjoying a decade-long oil bonanza, he had 10 employees.

“I have thought about closing for good and leaving, all the more so now with these increases. I have held back due to my 14 year-old-son, who I would leave here because I need to emigrate first,” said Herrera, surrounded by stores that have been shuttered after their owners fled the country.

To soften the blow, Maduro vowed that the government would cover three months of the wage increase for small and medium-sized companies. But he did not provide details and it remains unclear how his cash-starved government would afford such a hefty payout or whether the chaotic administration has the logistical capacity to pay wages on time.

The Information Ministry did not respond to a request for an explanation of the plan. Venezuela’s main business chamber, Fedecamaras, said it did not have any estimates on the effects of the measure yet, although local economists predicted a heavy toll.

“A minimum wage of 180 million bolivars in this current situation implies the closure of thousands of companies and the unemployment of many people,” said economist Luis Oliveros.

Bakery owner Luis Carballo, a 59-year-old who has worked in the bread sector for 45 years, said he would try to stay afloat but was full of dread.

“I have to increase prices … And if I don’t sell, production drops, and I have to suspend some of my employees. I feel really badly,” said Carballo, as he handed loaves to customers in the Andean city of San Cristobal.

Outside another bakery in San Cristobal, security guard Victor Martinez fretted with a friend about the measures.��This is worsening the situation. I’m scared of losing my job,” said Martinez.

Read More https://worldwide-finance.net/news/commodities-futures-news/venezuelan-shopkeepers-alarmed-by-maduros-latest-economic-moves

[breakbit]

Venezuelan shopkeepers alarmed by Maduro's latest economic moves

New Post has been published on https://worldwide-finance.net/news/commodities-futures-news/venezuelan-shopkeepers-alarmed-by-maduros-latest-economic-moves

Venezuelan shopkeepers alarmed by Maduro's latest economic moves

© Reuters. A man sells fish in a street market in Caracas

By Mircely, Guanipa and Anggy Polanco

PUNTO FIJO/SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (Reuters) – After Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s 60-fold increase to the minimum wage, storeowners on Saturday wrestled with an anguishing decision: Close up shop or hit customers with steep price hikes at the risk of sinking the business.

In a set of sweeping announcements that shocked many Venezuelans, the socialist Maduro on Friday ordered a 96 percent currency devaluation, pegged the bolivar currency to the government’s petro cryptocurrency and boosted taxes as part of a plan aimed at pulling the OPEC member out of its economic tailspin.

The measures especially spooked shopkeepers already struggling to stay afloat due to hyperinflation, government-set prices for goods ranging from flour to diapers, and strict currency controls that crimp imports. Many stores were closed on Saturday as owners hunkered down to consider the implications.

Economists warned that some companies would go under, unable to shoulder the massive increase in monthly minimum wage from 3 million bolivars to 180 million bolivars, or roughly $0.5 to $30. That will likely increase unemployment and further fuel mass emigration that has overwhelmed neighboring South American countries.

Jhonny Herrera, 41, owner of a hardware store on the windswept Paraguana Peninsula in northern Venezuela, said he would have to fire two employees because he cannot afford to pay them, leaving him with just one worker. When Venezuela was enjoying a decade-long oil bonanza, he had 10 employees.

“I have thought about closing for good and leaving, all the more so now with these increases. I have held back due to my 14 year-old-son, who I would leave here because I need to emigrate first,” said Herrera, surrounded by stores that have been shuttered after their owners fled the country.

To soften the blow, Maduro vowed that the government would cover three months of the wage increase for small and medium-sized companies. But he did not provide details and it remains unclear how his cash-starved government would afford such a hefty payout or whether the chaotic administration has the logistical capacity to pay wages on time.

The Information Ministry did not respond to a request for an explanation of the plan. Venezuela’s main business chamber, Fedecamaras, said it did not have any estimates on the effects of the measure yet, although local economists predicted a heavy toll.

“A minimum wage of 180 million bolivars in this current situation implies the closure of thousands of companies and the unemployment of many people,” said economist Luis Oliveros.

Bakery owner Luis Carballo, a 59-year-old who has worked in the bread sector for 45 years, said he would try to stay afloat but was full of dread.

“I have to increase prices … And if I don’t sell, production drops, and I have to suspend some of my employees. I feel really badly,” said Carballo, as he handed loaves to customers in the Andean city of San Cristobal.

Outside another bakery in San Cristobal, security guard Victor Martinez fretted with a friend about the measures.“This is worsening the situation. I’m scared of losing my job,” said Martinez.

Read More https://worldwide-finance.net/news/commodities-futures-news/venezuelan-shopkeepers-alarmed-by-maduros-latest-economic-moves

[v1989chapman-blog]

Cabo San Román. Model: @cinthiaventura_ Photo: @jesuschaps #peninsula #paraguana #falcon #venezuela #modelovenezolana #venezuelamodels #playasvenezuela #cabo #cabosanroman #sunset #venezuelasunset

[anthonysurreal]

Horizonte no siempre es lejanía. #Caminos de #Paraguana #Santarita #Falcon #venezuela #Desert #desierto #domingo #zonadesertica #peninsula #ig_falcon #igers #instalike

[newsintodays-blog]

Under military rule, Venezuela oil workers quit in a stampede

New Post has been published on http://newsintoday.info/2018/04/17/under-military-rule-venezuela-oil-workers-quit-in-a-stampede/

Under military rule, Venezuela oil workers quit in a stampede

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 U.S. major Chevron.

FILE PHOTO: A man wears a cap with the logo of PDVSA as he attends the swear-in ceremony of the new board of directors of Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA in Caracas, Venezuela January 31, 2017. REUTERS/Marco Bello/File Photo

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 [PDVSA.UL], 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 at Venezuela’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.

The corporate logo of the state oil company PDVSA is seen at a gas station in Caracas, Venezuela March 18, 2018. REUTERS/Marco Bello

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 U.S. dollars a month.

Slideshow (2 Images)

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 U.S. 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

Source link

[davidbeta-blog1]

#estucoandino te regala esta #flowers en señal de #amistad ,te esperamos en #Valencia #venezuela #beutiful #cement #albañiles #estucar #amigos #friends #brothers #t #tbt❤️ #tbh #andinos #andes #arquitectura #ingenieros #ingenieria (en Cabo San Roman Peninsula De Paraguana)

[v1989chapman-blog]

Cabo San Román. Model: @cinthiaventura_ Photo: @jesuschaps #peninsula #paraguana #falcon #venezuela #modelovenezolana #venezuelamodels #playasvenezuela #cabo #cabosanroman #sunset #venezuelasunset