Cuban institution mourns death of prominent industry personality

 HAVANA, Cuba, Aug 20 (ACN) The Cuban Oil Industry (Cupet by its Spanish acronym) mourned the death at 83 of PhD. Juan Alfonso Fleites Melo, an outstanding personality in the oil industry who in 1992 became the first general manager of the entity.

In an extensive information on his death, he was born on August 13, 1941 in the town of Nueva Paz, where he participated from a very young age in the insurrectionary struggle against the dictatorial regime of Fulgencio Batistas and in which he held important responsibilities in the 26th of July Movement of Güines.

After the revolutionary triumph of 1959 he joined the tasks of the construction of the new society, he began to serve in the Consolidated Company of Mechanics and his training as a manager took place in the school that represented the Ministry of Industries, under the leadership of Commander Ernesto Che Guevara and his basic principles of honesty, austerity and discipline.

In 1963 he was promoted to director of the Consolidated Salt Company, 10 years later he went on to work in the General Directorate of Geology and Geophysics, and was appointed director of the Oil Drilling and Extraction Companies.

From 1982 he was in charge of the Oil Company of Pinar del Rio, and from 1989 began negotiations for the signing of association contracts with international companies, and in January 1990 the first agreement of its kind could be signed, thanks to a huge training management and the support of the highest management of the country.

In 2012 he retired after 53 years of uninterrupted work and impeccable trajectory.