MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Power outage knocks out Venezuelan refinery complex, one of the world’s largest

Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez expects refineries to be back at work over the weekend

A power fault hit Venezuela's main refinery centre on Thursday, stopping the 310,000 barrel-per-day Cardon facility and partially halting the 645,000-bpd Amuay installation, a source at state oil company PDVSA said.

It was the second partial stoppage in a week at Amuay, Venezuela’s biggest refinery, which came back online days ago after electrical faults paralyzed a catalytic cracker and most operations there on May 6.

An oil trader who deals with PDVSA estimated it would take at least a week to resume full operations at the refineries.

Exports from South America's biggest crude producer have declined in recent years, in part because PDVSA refinery network has suffered repeated power faults, accidents and planned stoppages for maintenance.

Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez told reporters PDVSA hoped to have both refineries restarted by the end of the week. He said the installations had inventories to last 15 days.

Workers at the site said Thursday's problems appeared to have been caused by a power cut at Genevapca, the electrical plant that supplies the refineries and surrounding areas.
Ramirez said the power plant was being restarted.

Amuay and Cardon are part of the Paraguana Refining Center (CRP), one of the biggest oil refinery complexes in the world.

“We're monitoring the situation, but it is still an emergency,” said one worker at Amuay. “Everything lost power, from the administrative building to the docks”, he added.

The loading and unloading of about six tankers at the CRP docks was continuing, he said, but with minimal staff because PDVSA moved most workers out of the area as a safety measure.

The PDVSA source said a small fire broke out when the power cut hit, but that it was immediately brought under control.

The CRP is in Venezuela's western Falcon state, which despite having several thermoelectric power plants has been one of the regions hardest hit by recent power outages.