Oil workers from Falcón State informed La Patilla that the two most important refineries in western Venezuela may start to produce gasoline again. One plant at the Amuay refinery and the other in the Cardón refinery. Both are part of the Paraguaná Refining Complex (CRP) and are in the pre-start-up phase. This could eventually cause the restart of the production of gasoline by the third week of July.
Correspondent lapatilla.com
It is worth remembering that since last Sunday, July 9th, the CRP had reduced its fuel production to zero since it stopped due to problems in some heat exchangers, the only plant that was operational at the Cardón refinery was the “Reformador” (Catalytic reforming unit), which is one of the key plants need to produce gasoline. However, it was learned that the catalytic reforming unit is ready for the pre-start-up process, although it has not been loaded, it may be that by the third week of July it could already be producing fuel.
Regarding the Amuay refinery, it was learned that its catalytic plant (Dcay) is also in the pre-start-up process since the repair works caused by a problem in the refractory surfaces of the regenerator started last March when production ceased altogether. Industry workers confirmed to La Patilla that the repair works have already been finished and they are going through the pre-start procedures to see how the machine behaves and may begin to load it.
They highlighted that there is a little more reliability with this important plant because exhaustive work was done throughout the four months and they hope these will have the best results. “This weekend it should be operational,” said a worker who preferred not to identify himself.
In the Paraguaná Peninsula where the two refineries that are part of the CRP are located with a production capacity of 955,000 barrels per day, queues began to be registered again to buy fuel at international prices, however this only happens when these service stations do not receive constant supply from PDVSA.
It was learned from several service station managers and service men that during the second week of July, PDVSA did not supply any fuel to most of the “dollarized” service stations (fuel sold only at international prices in hard currency), so most of them worked with the reserve that lasted for some until this last Friday, many stations closed due to lack of fuel.
Trade unionist denounces gasoline output shipped to Cuba
Iván Freites, an oil trade unionist in exile, denounced this Friday the 14th that the ship Alicia left the Amuay refinery with 150,000 barrels of 91-octane gasoline for Cuba. These amount translates into 24 million liters of gasoline (more than 6 million gallons).
Oil tankers informed La Patilla that Pdvsa has a fuel storage facility where it is decided where the fuel goes. Although most of the time these shipment orders are only accessible to part of PDVSA’s senior management.