VENEZUELAN President Nicolas Maduro pledged reforms to state oil firm PDVSA on Wednesday to “break corruption and bureaucracy.”

Mr Maduro announced the “transformation and deepening” of the firm to a gathering of oil workers at the Miraflores presidential palace for his 54th birthday.

“I decree an absolute restructuring and change of course in PDVSA from today to break corruption and bureaucracy,” he said.

“Today has begun… a third stage of transformation, nationalist, popular, revolutionary, Chavista and profoundly socialist in content.”

He said Labour Minister and PDVSA President Eulogio del Pino would soon travel to Moscow to wrap up accords with Russia and Opec member states.

He asked the oil workers for “the collaboration of all so that the working class will take command of PDVSA at every level.”

“You are the guardians and custodians of the greatest mineral riches on planet Earth, which belong only to Venezuelans.”

PDVSA had been a site of intense struggle in Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution.

Following the failed coup against late president Hugo Chavez in 2002, the firm’s managers staged a three-month lock-out in an attempt to wreck the oil-dependent economy.

Meanwhile the opposition-controlled National Assembly voted down a motion condemning US finance giant JP Morgan Chase for claims PDVSA was delaying bond payments of $404 million (£324m).

Mr Maduro claims that Citi­bank is responsible for the delay as it allowed a backlog to interfere with payments. He demanded an apology from JP Morgan for trying to “sabotage” the country’s economy.

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