SANTO DOMINGO. The government of Venezuela will buy 40% of the shares of the Dominican Refinery (Refidomsa) for US$131.5 million, in an agreement that will be signed in the country during the first two weeks of November, but the method of payment has not yet been established because several options are being weighed.

The operation was announced by the Minister of the Hacienda Vicente Bengoa after the end of a meeting that lasted for more than 4 hours with a commission of executives of the state-owned Petroleum of Venezuela, S. A. (PDVSA) who came to the country to finish the negotiations with government officials.

Bengoa said that the only thing remaining to do is the final draft of the document, a job that was assigned to a group of lawyers, and this will delay the signing a little more.

Chavez is not coming

The formal signing of the sale of the shares of Refidomsa will not have President Hugo Chavez present as had been announced. For the Dominican state Bengoa will sign and in representation of Venezuela the executive vice-president of PDVSA, Asdrubal Chavez. All this will take place during a ceremony whose date has not been set.

"With this we happily conclude these negotiations, that are going to be a great help for the Refidomsa and for the country because with a partner of the category and knowledge of Venezuela in the area of petroleum, the refinery will, over the next few years, increase its production and sales considerably", affirmed Bengoa.

Method of payment not yet defined

Amilcar Mata, the manager of PDVSA, and who headed the Venezuelan commission, said that they are happy with the relations between the two governments and he said that he did not doubt that the REFIDOMSA would become a much stronger business in the future and one that would give the Dominican people everything that is expected of it.

When questioned about how the payments would be made, he said that several schemes are being evaluated, and they would be announcing the solution at the signing, although he did not discard that one of the options was using the oil invoices.

"There are considerations that we are going to take back to Venezuela and later the minister (Bengoa) can give more details of the transaction, but we are still evaluating some of these ideas and at the proper time we will give you the adequate information", he said. Then Vicente Bengoa intervened and made it clear that the details of the form of payment will be offered at the time of the signing.

Nevertheless, it came to light that the form of payment for which both parties are inclined to accept is through the oil invoices, "because the country owes millions of dollars to Venezuela".

Besides Mata, the Venezuelan commission was made up of Rosa Rodruguez, Marianela Ortega, Sergio Inciarte, Alirio Riera, Johimar Duran and Oscar Vasquez. The Dominican counterpart commission that accompanied Bengoa included lawyers Marino Vinicio Castillo and Mariano German, as well as the President's Legal Council, Abel Rodriguez del Orbe, Cesar Pina Toribio, the Presidential Minister, and Viriato Sanchez the general manager of Refidomsa.

Benefits

Bengoa assured the reporters that so far this year and 11 months after the Dominican state took on the administration of Refidomsa, the company has obtained profits of US$132 million, which demonstrates that the state is not a bad administrator, if it is handled with the criteria that was taken on at the refinery. This was achieved with the same employees, made up of 130 persons.

De Diario Libre