Snapped Shot

Always Watching the All-Seeing Eye

 

Citgo takes off gloves?

By Brian C. Ledbetter · Wednesday, October 18. 2006 11:05
It seems that Citgo is trying to respond to the backlash over Hugo "Oilman" Chavez's sycophantic speech to the United Nations. Check out how "sorry" they are, though:

In the first ad, which appeared Monday in the Washington Post, Citgo President Felix Rodriguez said critics are doing more damage to Citgo's thousands of U.S. employees and small-business owners who sell Citgo gasoline than to the company itself.

"We understand that, as a corporation, we cannot always control the environment in which we operate, but we feel compelled to set the record straight out of respect for our employees, business partners and consumers," he said.

Boy, they sound real sorry, don't they?

Let's look at this objectively—If the boycott hurts Citgo S.A., does it really hurt American employees of Citgo? In the short term, perhaps. But, looking long-term, depressing Citgo's market value could potentially lower the price for the American arm of the company enough for a, shall we say, more American company to buy the U.S. arm of Citgo.

Frankly, I'm all for breaking our ties with Venezuela, if they hate us so much. Keep up that boycott, folks! They're feeling it!
· permalink · Your Protest Stinks · Comments (3) · Trackbacks (0)
 
Snap.com Popups

If they're driving you crazy, please click here to disable them on this website.




Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments [RSS]
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

Here is what a handful of random people think about this article. But first, the fine print:
The opinions expressed here, even where approved for display, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this website, the management, or any other entity or organization, with the exception of the Vast Zionist Conspiracy. Those opinions we represent in style, yo. Please keep the language in these comments clean, as this is intended to be a family-friendly, work-friendly website. Comments not compliant with this policy will be edited for content where necessary. Abusive or otherwise illegal comments will be reported to the proper authorities, up to and including the aforementioned Vast Zionist Conspiracy. The Management cannot and will not be held responsible for commenters making a spectacle of themselves, even if The Management are the said commenters in question. In other words, don't take yourself so seriously, folks. We're all here to discuss the news, and more importantly, to have fun. Now go get yourself into some OCD treatment program—you obviously need it if you actually read all of this mess.

Elisabeth A. on 2006-10-19 00:08 #1
*You asked if the boycott hurts Citgo S.A., but if it really hurts American employees of Citgo? I think the answer is yes. Citgo doesn't own one station in the US--they're all owned by Americans, like this guy (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/15776020.htm). Boycotting his Citgo station would certainly have long term effects on him, his family and his American employees. He's no fan of Chavez either...
Reply  
Brian on 2006-10-19 08:25 #1.1
*Elisabeth,

Thanks for the comments! Lord knows I don't want any small businessmen to be hurt by Citgo's attachment to a maniac, but I still think that the pain will be short-lived, as the stations that are hurting will fairly quickly realign themselves with another oil company.

Maybe I'm not familiar enough with the industry to have an accurate picture of how the relationship between the oil companies and the individual gas stations work, though. Anyone out there who knows more is welcome to correct me, as usual. (As many times as I get corrected around here, it wouldn't bother me in the least to have it happen again!)

:-)

Warmest Regards,
Brian
Reply  
Elisabeth A. on 2006-10-19 14:06 #2
*Brian,

Thanks for making me feel so welcome. I don't know the specifics on what it takes to 'realign' from one oil company to another, but I'd bet there's considerable time and expense. Heck, if Verizon wants to charge me $200 for wanting to switch to a different cell phone provider, I can only imagine what a big oil company would charge their customers to make a switch! ;-)
Reply  

Add Comment

HTML-Tags will be converted to Entities.
Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.
BBCode format allowed
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA