Refineries operate at “half throttle”. Although work has been carried out to recover them, much remains to be done.
By La Patilla
Jan 31, 2023
In 2020 Nicolás Maduro’s regime announced the recovery of the Paraguaná Refining Complex (CRP), the main fuel producer in Venezuela, with a installed production capacity of 955,000 barrels per day.
However, this volume of production has not yet been reached, due to the difficulties faced by the Amuay and Cardón refineries, which range from plants in complete abandonment caused by years of lack of maintenance, countless oil spills and gas leaks, and also the erroneous use of substandard nationally produced parts to substitute specialized equipment manufactured overseas.
One must add to this list are the pending payments to oil workers in the region (which are more than seven months late), the lack of uniforms and safety equipment, the massive migration of qualified personnel, as well as the delayed payment of labor supplies and equipment.
This is the dramatic x-ray of what happens in the Paraguaná Refining Complex, which became an international reference as one of the best in the world. This government’s negligence is reflected in the huge queues that Venezuelans are forced to endure to supply their vehicles with gasoline.
Superficial Improvements
When Tareck El Aissami took over the reins of the industry as the “Minister of Popular Power for Petroleum”, there were some visible improvements in both refineries: they installed perimeter fences, placed lighting on the docks, painted and improved some technical areas.
But both refineries need much more than make-up, and this is evident by the various accidents recorded in the last two years, ranging from fires in pools of wasted (spilled) oil, hydrocarbon and gas spills in nearby waters contaminating mangroves and the “Golfete de Coro”.
In these two years, although the workers have done their best to produce fuel and thus supply the demand of the domestic market, the production plants continue to register many failures. Such is the case of catalytic cracking unit, in Amuay, and the “Reformador”, in Cardón, which have suffered at least three events each, which has forced them to stop on several occasions. These plants are essential for the production of gasoline and diesel.
Despite the fact that an effort has been made to increase production, until January 2023, not even half of what is consumed in Venezuela is produced, which is only about 120,000 barrels per day, according to information from workers in the area and from the union “Petroleros Sin Fronteras” (Oilmen Without Frontiers).
“The refineries are like those old cars: one thing get fixed and another breaks down. They had been without maintenance for many years and although they are getting a little care, there is still a lot to do to get them back in optimal condition. We do what we can, but we know that at any moment they will fail and, well, we have to look around to repair or replace any part that is damaged and has to be made identical,” said a worker from the area, who preferred to stay anonymous.
Shoddy Gasoline
The need to refine crude oil was eased with Iranian tankers that arrived in Venezuela with 80 octane fuel that, although it was not suitable for the national automotive fleet, was mixed with whatever additives that were available in the country, and so it was distributed to service stations.
Then came the complaints from users for damage to their engines. “I remember that when they put that gasoline, the cars were damaged by anything. I changed the spark plugs several times and I also had to send the fuel tank to be cleaned, because it was dirty. One had to buy additive in tablets to improve gasoline a bit. Really, one wastes such an amount of effort for that gasoline, it cannot be believed. Now we have to live in line to opt for gasoline, because we don’t earn enough to pay for the dollarized one,” said Humberto Blanco, a resident of Punta Cardón.
Last Friday, January 27th, the fluid catalytic cracker (FFC) at the Amuay refinery started up, which has the capacity to process some 645,000 barrels of oil per day. The FFC has been paralyzed since December 2022. It is not the first time that production has stopped in Amuay In the last two years, after it had a stoppage for almost six months.
Currently, the fluid catalytic cracker only produces 67,000 barrels of fuel out of 108,000 barrels of oil, which is its current capacity, because it is not fully operational. It is an essential plant for the production of gasoline and, although there is also one of these plants in Cardón, its production is much lower, reaching between 40,000 and 45,000 barrels, it all depends on its operation during the day.
The Little It Produces, They Take It Away
Despite the conditions of both refineries, the delivery of fuel to countries like Cuba does not stop. They have even emptied the refinery storage tanks onto ships that then dredge (pass the fuel from ship to ship on the high seas) to take it to other destinations.
This has been denounced by “Petroleros sin Fronteras” and also by Iván Freites, representative of the Union of Oil Workers of Falcón State. “The one who was absent has arrived… Ladies and Gentlemen, Lula has arrived!!! 25,000 tons of Pet Coke leave the Cardón refinery on a ship MANTA SENA bound for Brazil. Lula returns with more experience and training to increase looting in Venezuela,” Freites wrote on his Twitter account.
Accidents Come And Go
Several accidents and at least three fires have occurred inside the refineries since 2020. One of the most significant occurred on May 7th of that year, when some workers were disassembling a valve in a coking oven at the Cardón refinery. The maneuver left four of them with severe burns.
At that time, Freites warned that the refineries were not fit to operate, that the conditions were not right, nor were there qualified personnel for it.
In 2022, three fires were registered. The last of these incidents was on December 26th, when fortunately there were no injuries even though it was the largest. Fortunately, there was no serious damage, as it was attended to on time. On January 15th of this year, the last incident was recorded in the catalytic plant of the Cardón refinery and the security protocols were also activated which prevented the paralyzation of fuel production.
The Venezuelan Observatory for Environmental Human Rights documented 199 oil spills between 2016 and 2021 which, it assured, in the “great majority” of cases, were not reported by the authorities.
The spills have affected 15 states in the country. More than 90% of those reported occurred in the states of Anzoátegui, Monagas, Zulia, Sucre, Falcón and Carabobo. In the vast majority of cases, neither the state oil company PDVSA nor the national authorities provided information on the characteristics of the spill, much less its impact. Likewise, in no case did they assume responsibility for them.
These oil accidents have destroyed the marine ecosystem of the “Golfete de Coro”, a situation that has been denounced by the Falcón fishermen’s councils, since although PDVSA has worked to repair the pipeline, it does not apply environmental recovery measures in the area and the oil remains at the bottom of the sea.
Oil spills have reached up to four kilometers into the ocean. “All of our species have been killed and we are left without “chinchorros” (a type of artisanal fishing net). The boats have been stained and no one gives us answers. In other years, if the situation were different, they would have already compensated us,” said Carmen Sánchez, a resident of Tiguadare, Carirubana Municipality in Falcón State.
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