‘A gift of survival’: Venezuela’s Citgo provides low-cost heating oil to U.S. needy

Then Citgo stepped in.

On Dec. 6, Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.), along with Citgo CEO Felix Rodriguez, leaders of neighborhood organizations, and Venezuela’s ambassador to the United States, Bernardo Alvarez, delivered the first installment of 8 million gallons of Citgo heating oil earmarked for New York City, to be sold to those in need at a substantially reduced rate.

Citgo, based in Houston, is a refiner, transporter and marketer of transportation fuels and related products. The company is owned by PDV America, Inc., a subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

The first talk of low-cost heating oil for the Bronx was in September, when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was in town for the United Nations World Summit. He went on a tour of Manhattan and the Bronx with Serrano, and announced then that he would direct PDVSA to make oil available to low-income U.S. families.

The oil will be sold to community organizations and housing cooperatives instead of landlords, at the request of Chavez, to prevent price gouging. All of the oil will come from the allotment that Citgo has to sell in the U.S. None of it will come at the expense of poorer countries.

Eartha Bergenson, a resident of the Fordham-Bedford houses, which will be a recipient of the fuel aid, said, “When Con Edison comes to turn off the lights, now we can say, ‘No more! We can pay your bill!’” She said that the mother who lost her job would be able to receive rent assistance, because the savings the cooperative receives in oil will be passed on to the renters. She thanked Citgo for the “gift of survival.”

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