Latin American Oil Workers Association: Stability of the global energy business passes through Venezuela

Published at: 10/01/2026 06:31 PM

Venezuela is considered a key factor for global energy stability due to its large oil reserves, warned the president of the Texas Latin American Oil Workers Association (ALEP), Alejandro Terán Martínez, stating that the President of the United States, Donald Trump uprooted the imbalance of this market when he decided to intervene in CITGO.

In the program A Pulso, broadcast by Venezolana de Televisiòn, he explained that in Venezuela, during the 80s of the last century, it had a surplus at a time when the war broke out between Iran and Iraq, and decided to acquire CITGO, in the United States, whose negotiation could be done because Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). At that time, it became the first company in the world that had reserves, had production, processed, exported and refined.

The purchase of the company made it possible to sell heating fuel for the so-called “cold Christmas” in that country, which represented big business at the time.

Terán recalled that Commander Hugo Chávez Frías, in 2000, when he traveled to New York, donated shipments to the city's poor neighborhoods to help them survive in that icy cold, and he also decided to change the president of CITGO.

It is there, Terán said, when the destabilizing process begins and situations begin to develop to try to appropriate the company.

“What is behind all this, what is the real reality that is motivating this madness that has taken place so far? , he posed.

He responded, after recalling that, in 2019, with Trump in the presidency of the United States, it was decided to intervene the Venezuelan company, and that illegal action caused the closure of CITGO, the suspension of its union in Texas and the annihilation of small producers in that North American state.

He testified that they asked the U.S. government not to take control of CITGO, and for five years they defended the need for property to be returned to Venezuela, unsuccessfully.

“Now, how do we eat this elephant, right? , because he is an elephant that he believes, a man who has been telling him since 2019, and we were wildly opposed, don't do that crazy thing, sir, please, don't take control of CITGO. Then we told him on several occasions: the North American reserve is going downhill, we told him several times,” he said, referring to US oil production.

He commented that in the last report they delivered to Washington, “we told him: see Venezuela as it is and not as they say it is!”

Mazo News Team