Caracas, Oct 1 (IANS/EFE): State-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA said it plans to invest $45 billion this decade to maintain its domestic refinery network in the country and build other crude-processing facilities.

The director of the company's Paraguana complex, Jesus Luongo, made the announcement Friday, saying the plan will also require the construction of adjacent "social infrastructure" to avoid creating "areas of poverty surrounding the oil installations".

In planning projects of this magnitude, "thought is given not only to oil infrastructure but also to the most important thing: people".

"That's why we talk about building schools, hospitals, houses, roads, bridges and trains," Luongo said.

The firm "applies a policy that requires that the materials and human talent to be used in building new projects be Venezuelan, with a view to creating jobs and wealth inside the country."

Venezuela owns a dozen refineries in several countries, including the US.

For his part, the president of the company's industrial subsidiary, Ower Manrique, said that until President Hugo Chavez's administration took full control of the oil giant in 2003 "they brought everything from abroad and never created an industrial base that could grow in tandem with the domestic oil sector".