Americas News
Operations Resume at Venezuela's Amuay Refinery
Jesus Luongo, director of PDVSA Refining and CEO Paraguaná Refining Center (CRP), today said processing at Venezuela's Amuay refinery has resumed after they were closed last Saturday following an explosion reported to have been caused by a gas leak.
"Operational activities have resumed safely and gradually," he said.
PDVSA said a number of the facilitie's processing units are now back in operation and a total of 160,000 barrels were processed on Friday.
Amuay has the capacity to refine 645,000 barrels per day (bpd) with Luongo saying other processing units were scheduled to resume after further checks had been completed.
Last Saturday's explosion resulted in fires that burned for a number of days and official figures put the death toll of the incident at 42.
Critics including Henrique Capriles, President Hugo Chavez's main rival in the country's upcoming October presidential election, have said government inefficiency and under-investment under the current president have led to a drop in safety standards.
Chavez has denied that it was a lack of maintenance that led to the incident and has pledged $23m for clean-up operations.
Local reports say $6 billion has been spent in the past five years on refining operations.
Amuay, which forms part of the Paraguaná refinery complex, is Venezuela's largest and the world's second largest refinery complex.
