Who is Pedro Tellechea and why did the “successful” former Venezuelan Oil Minister fall from grace?

Tellechea was arrested on charges related to his role as oil ministerwhich he completed until August of this year. According to a statement from the Attorney General’s Office, the former official delivered the “Automated Command and Control System, known as the brain of PDVSA, to a company controlled by the United States intelligence servicesthus violating all the legal mechanisms of our national sovereignty.”

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He army colonel The 48-year-old had assumed the position of Minister of Petroleum in March 2023 with the promise of “cleaning up” this sector after the corruption scandal that ended with the imprisonment of the powerful Chavista leader. Tareck El Aissamiwho led the portfolio between 2020 and 2023.

Tellechea “He had earned a reputation for being efficient, orderly, and an executor: the qualities of a good manager. Maduro recognized it in public and his friends – and even his enemies – in private. “No one better to read metrics, organize, clean up, plug budget holes, monitor high-ranking officials, but also the lady at the door and the maintenance man.”reported the Spanish newspaper “El País”.

When he was president of PDVSA, Tellechea paid debts, increased the production of barrels of oil and gained the trust of large companies in the industrylike Exon.

The production of barrels went from 700,000 a day to 940,000 during the management of Tellechea in PDVSA, thanks in part to the licenses that the United States granted to Chevron to operate in Venezuelaand to the letters of conformity received by the Spanish Repsol and the Italian Eni.

When he was appointed Minister of Industry and National Production, Ripe He highlighted “his managerial and professional capacity” for the recovery of the entire country’s industry.

After being removed from the Ministry of Industry and National Production, Tellechea He indicated on social networks that his departure was due to “health problems” that required “immediate attention.”

But on Monday, Ripewithout naming him, said that he will not rest in his fight against “bureaucratism, indolence, the corrupt and the traitors, we are going for them, firmly, no matter who falls.”

The one who did mention Tellechea He was the leader of Chavismo Diosdado Hairwho is now Minister of the Interior. on tuesday accused him of “treason to the country”.

Hair maintained that Tellechea “He handed over the brains of the company, all the management of wells, contracts, operations,” to an American company that also “had control” when the coup d’état occurred in April 2002, which removed the then president from power. Hugo Chavez for two days.

The arrest of Tellechea It occurs in the midst of a strong political crisis following allegations of opposition fraud in Maduro’s re-election for a third consecutive term in the July 28 elections.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) proclaimed him the winner, but has not published the minutes, as required by law, alleging that its system suffered a cyber attack.

The opposition published on a website copies of electoral records with which it claims a victory for the candidate Edmundo González Urrutiawho is now exiled in Spain after an arrest warrant against him.

What is behind Tellechea’s departure?

The Venezuelan political analyst José Vicente Carrasquero said to The Commerce that the prosecution’s accusation against Tellechea It’s not credible. He thinks it is an excuse to cover up the destruction of the oil industry, the corruption and the settling accounts within Chavismo.

“Given the number of people who are already detained, there must be a serious problem of corruption. The Prosecutor’s Office says it is because they gave a North American company PDVSA software. “That seems like an unreasonable excuse.”said Carrasquero.

“This appears to be a strand of this omnipresent corruption in Venezuelawhere it seems that the rule of Venezuelan officials is that if they put you there it is to steal. So you have to take advantage of it.”he added.

“Of course, I imagine that PDVSA is performing below the regime’s expectations. And in that sense, he is the fifth president of PDVSA detained. The only PDVSA president of the last few who is not detained is Hugo Chávez’s first cousin. I imagine that’s why. I don’t think he was any saint.”Carrasquero continued.

The analyst recalled that when Tellechea left the Ministry of Petroleum, was replaced by the vice president Delcy Rodriguezvery close to him and ally of Ripe.

Carrasquero also mentioned that there are four factions of chavismo that power quotas are disputed: one is the one directed by the Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino López, who manages the military sector and has a good relationship with Maduro, who also manages his own faction. The third faction is that of the brothers Jorge and Delcy Rodríguezwho have power over the National Electoral Council, the National Assembly and the oil sector. And the fourth other faction is that of Diosdado Hair, with power interests.

“It seems that at the center of all this is Ripe like a articulatoralthough I do not see him as a figure skilled and powerful enough to handle all these structures. Rather it seems to me that Maduro is a weak element that could end up paying the consequences of a confrontation between the other three factions.”, he remarked.

“There is a crisis of confidence in that group. You see a Godfather changing the military. A Cabello doing things himself, like a police minister, a minister who walks around the street. You see Maduro changing ministers and you see the Rodríguezes taking actions outside their competence, pressuring Maduro to break relations with Spain, trying to involve Maduro more with the BRICS issue, etc. It is a group there united, if you will, to stay in power, but where there is evidently a crisis of confidence between them“Carrasquero explained.

For her part, the Venezuelan journalist Carmen Beatriz FernandezCEO of DataestrategIA and professor of Political Communication at the University of Navarra, told The Commerce that the case of Tellechea confirms that in the Government of Venezuela There is a mafia institutionality that is “around the loot”.

“And that vision of the State as the loot has to PDVSA like the greater ark. It is a vision very far removed from the duty of a Republic where institutions work. In the end, what is giving you away is a huge institutional fragility where institutions respond only to the extent that you have accounts for the favors of absolutist power”, Fernandez stated.

“If they belong to one, if they belong to another, if it is a witch hunt, if it is a mafia confrontation between that archipelago of powers that constitutes the high government, if they are the Rodríguezes facing off against the Cabellos, beyond all that, what this case is talking to you about is that enormous institutional fragility, where institutions are subordinated to the appetites and voracity of powerful elements of the high government. It is another micro representation of what has been the deterioration of the Republic, basically”added Fernández.

From the hand of Tareck El Aissami

According to the Venezuelan portal Cocuyo Effect, Pedro Tellechea rose within the Chavista administration with Ripe in power. From the hand of Tareck El Aissamibegan his career at Venalum, one of the basic companies in Guayana, in 2018.

In 2019 it moved to national oil industry, when He was president of Petrochemicals of Venezuela (Pequiven) and from there he took the big leap when he was named president of PDVSA in January 2023.

Two months later, he took over as Minister of Petroleum, replacing El Aissamiwho after falling from grace was imprisoned after being involved in a corruption plot.