Remarks for Alejandro Granado

CITGO Petroleum Corporation Chairman, President and CEO Alejandro Granado presented this speech at a VIP reception at the Anniversary Awards Gala to Benefit TransAfrica Forum, Inc. on Nov. 7, 2007 in Washington, D.C.

Thank you for inviting me to be a part of your thirtieth anniversary celebration. It is with great pride that I accept the Corporate Social Responsibility Award on behalf of CITGO Petroleum Corporation, based in Houston, Texas and on behalf of our parent company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., (PDVSA), the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

As chairman, president and CEO of CITGO, I have the privilege to be involved in projects that we sponsor to help others and unite us in solidarity.

At CITGO and our parent company we share the mission of giving hope and a better life to the poorest and most vulnerable, whether they live here in the United States, Africa, Venezuela or any other place where people are in need of help.

We believe this is one of our key strengths, as much as our business strengths. Now allow me to briefly summarize for you some of those business strengths for both CITGO and PDVSA.

PDVSA today is a vertically-integrated, global company, sitting on a base of more than three hundred billion barrels of conventional and heavy crude oil reserves.

This figure includes more than 230 billion barrels of extra heavy crude oil reserves from the Orinoco Oil Belt. These reserves are currently being certified by an independent third party in a process scheduled for completion next year.

When we add the Orinoco reserves, Venezuela shifts to the number one position in the world, with reserves larger than those of Saudi Arabia.

Through ships and pipelines, those reserves are connected to the downstream portion of our system here in the U.S., where CITGO plays a key role.

CITGO’s refineries, terminals and marketing network of more than 82 hundred service stations enable the products made from Venezuelan crude to reach the final U.S. consumer.

Thus, PDVSA has the largest reserves of low cost, heavy crude in the world while CITGO has a refining network that processes the heaviest, lowest-cost crudes of any refiner in the U.S. The combination provides a secure source of finished products to the U.S. market.

At CITGO we use the strengths that I just described to give back to the communities where we have a presence. An excellent example of these efforts is the CITGO–Venezuela Heating Oil Program. When the price of heating oil skyrocketed after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, CITGO was the only company that responded to a request from U.S. senators to provide assistance to low- income Americans.

The CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program was created in 2005 to provide deeply discounted heating oil to needy people and the organizations that serve them. During the first winter of the program, 40 million gallons of heating oil were distributed at a discount of 40 percent.

Last winter, CITGO doubled the total to 100 million gallons to help approximately 1.2 million people in 19 states stay warm as temperatures dropped.

As part of this volume, the CITGO-Venezuela Tribal Heating Oil Program provided heating oil to Native Americans in 163 tribes across seven states.

Right now we are preparing to launch this program for the third consecutive winter. Many of the people we have helped and will continue to help are African Americans.

We know that for some people our discounted heating oil has made the difference between going hungry and staying warm. We are happy to say that those who participated in the program were able to stay warm, eat and pay their bills.

Furthermore, this summer we launched a new initiative in The Bronx, one of the boroughs of New York City, involving social development and environmental restoration programs.

Under this initiative we will disburse approximately four million dollars in grants between now and 2010 to multiple grass roots organizations in the area.

The projects are wide in scope, ranging from day care facilities to help working mothers, to educational efforts, to a food cooperative and others.

As part of this program, we have included several environmental recovery efforts in and around The Bronx River.

And CITGO is or has been involved in many other social responsibility initiatives. Before I conclude, I would like to briefly mention two of them.

In the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, CITGO pledged five million dollars in support of survivors and reconstruction efforts. At the time, we were also instrumental in securing additional petroleum product supplies of approximately one million barrels from our parent company, to prevent a further escalation in prices. Again, many of the people in desperate need that benefited from our efforts were African Americans.

We at CITGO feel very honored by this award and encouraged to continue moving forward. What we do is simply part of the way we do business. Thank you for choosing us.

Again I congratulate you for your 30 years of service as you work to promote solidarity with the oppressed while supporting human rights, gender equity, democracy, and sustainable economic and environmental development practices in Africa and other parts of the world where people of African descent live.

I wish you much success as you continue to make a difference in the lives of those you touch and serve.

Thank you.

End

CITGO, based in Houston, is a refiner, transporter and marketer of transportation fuels, lubricants, petrochemicals, refined waxes, asphalt and other industrial products. The company is owned by PDV America, Inc., an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.