Oil operations in Venezuela returning to normal
( 2002-04-13 15:00 ) (8 )

Employees of Venezuela's state- owned oil company PDVSA, who have been on a national strike since Thursday, are returning to work on Friday and efforts are being made to guarantee the company's oil production and exports at full capability, said the PDVSA management.

"I have good news, we are normalizing operations," said Edgar Paredes, an executive director of the state oil monopoly.

He added that instructions have already been given to start administrative procedures within the oil complex, one of the world 's largest refineries.

Horacio Medina, a PDVSA manager, added that operations, disrupted by the bitter labor dispute, will return to normal within six to seven days.

In the early hours of Friday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was forced to resign at the request of the High Military Command, after a deadly protest orchestrated by the opposition left a total of 12 dead and over 100 others wounded.

Venezuela, a member country of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), generates a third of the nation's 110 billion US dollars gross domestic product (GDP) from oil, which accounts for 80 percent of its export earnings and half of the government income.