saw many of PDVSA's managers and employees, including the CTV trade union federation, join to pressure Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez to call early elections, and virtually stop oil production for two months. Nearly 19,000 employees, most of them seasoned professionals, were summarily dismissed, and production resumed with employees loyal to the government. The International Labour Organization (ILO) called on the Venezuelan government to launch "an independent investigation into allegations of detention and torture," surrounding this strike. The company has since formed its own militia, which all employees join on a voluntary basis, to ward off a potential "coup" by the government. It considers itself virtually indistinguishable from the state, its social programs more or less running the country's "socialist revolution." In 2005 PDVSA opened its first office in China, and announced plans to nearly triple its fleet of oil tankers, to 58. In April and May 2005, PDVSA, per an agreement signed between the governments of Venezuela and Argentina, sent 50 million tonnes of fuel oil to the latter to alleviate the effects of an energy crisis due to a shortage of natural gas. In November 2005, PDVSA and its subsidiary in the United States, Citgo, announced an agreement with Massachusetts to provide heating oil to low income families in Boston at a discount of 40% below market price. Similar agreements were later set up with other states and cities in the US Northeast, including New York's Bronx, Maine, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Delaware. Under the program, Citgo offered a total of around of heating oil at below market prices, equivalent to a discount of between 60 and 80 cents a gallon. On 28 July 2006, credit ratings agency Moody's Investor Service said it was removing its standalone ratings on PDVSA because the oil company did not provide adequate operational and financial information. As of 2019, PDVSA had still not filed its 2004 financial results with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that were due in June 2005. During the 2000s, PDVSA made carried out showcase projects in shanty towns and waste removal. In 2008, PDVSA had been Latin America's largest company, but in 2009 it was overtaken by Petrobras and Pemex, according to a ranking of the region's top 500 companies from Latin Business Chronicle. 2007 expropriations In 2007, PDVSA bought 82% percent of Electricidad de Caracas company from AES Corporation as part of a renationalization program. Subsequently,