[NYTr] Cienfuegos Refinery an Example of What We Can Do Together: Chavez

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Granma Daily - Dec 22, 2007
http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/english/news/art29.html

Refinery Is Example of What We Can Do Together

By MARIA JULIA MAYORAL

The reactivation and modernization of Camilo Cienfuegos Oil Refinery is
an example of what we can do when we get together, said Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez on Friday evening.

Chavez and Cuban First Vice President Raul Castro also praised the
important debates and results of the Fourth Petrocaribe summit that
ended yesterday in the port city of Cienfuegos, 260 kilometers
southeast of Havana.

The first stage of the refinery reactivation took only 18 months
despite the complexity of 15 projects totaling US $166 million. It’s
only the beginning of what will be a huge petrochemical center that is
part of Petrocaribe’s effort promoting the integration of the Caribbean
and the peoples of the Americas.

Chavez explained that the regional plan for the next decade involves
building ten new refineries and expanding eight existing ones in
Caribbean and Latin American countries with an estimated investment of
US $22 billion. To this end, he said that it will be possible to refine
Venezuelan crude oil in Cienfuegos, the Dominican Republic and
Nicaragua, and also obtain diverse value added by products including
gasoline, diesel and fuel oil.

The Venezuelan leader also said that factories for making
"petro-houses" in the Caribbean and Central America would be built so
that in 10 or 20 years people will have good homes. This, he said, is
the long term vision of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas
(ALBA).

Chavez noted that only conscience can activate willpower and only with
a huge collective willpower of millions and millions of people can
complementary projects of integration, such as those proposed at this
Petrocaribe summit, be built. Such projects involve not only economic,
technological and productive aspects but also social, he added.

For his part, Raul Castro called the discussions at the Petrocaribe
summit both interesting and useful. He said the forum and the start up
of the first phase of the refinery are of great importance by
themselves, but take on even more relevance when taking into account
the serious dangers that today threaten the survival of humanity.
Perils he said are the consequence of uncontrolled oil consumption by
the developed, capitalist countries.

Raul added that in the face of such irrationality, the only innovative
regional energy project is Petrocaribe. He noted that nowhere else is
there a producer country that supplies fuel based on the principles of
cooperation and solidarity, concepts diametrically opposed to the laws
of the free market.

No other program allows for the purchaser to pay only 60 percent at the
time of shipment with 25 years to pay the rest with only 1 percent
interest. He noted that under the Petrocaribe agreements the
outstanding 40 percent can be invested in social programs: to fight
illiteracy, provide healthcare, and improve services and the well-being
of the population.

Raul said the end of the Petrocaribe summit Friday is not like the
closing of any international meeting on the energy crisis, where the
only accord reached is to meet again at some other place and discuss
the same problems that become increasingly more serious.