Curacao 335,000 bpd refinery may restart next week

www.alertnet.org 14 Jan 2003 21:29

CARACAS, Venezuela, Jan 14 (Reuters) - The 335,000 barrel per day (bpd) Curacao Isla refinery, shut last month due to a 44-day oil strike in neighboring Venezuela, may begin to restart operations next week, a plant spokeswoman said.

The plant, which is run by Venezuelan state oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), was forced to shut in December because oil tankers were not receiving instructions from striking PDVSA staff.

Product tanks bulged with fuel that could not be exported, but stock levels have since been drained as replacement PDVSA employees nominated vessels to deliver some stored products to Venezuela.

"We've been reducing inventories and the situation is no longer critical. We are waiting to get commitments to take the products," the spokeswoman told Reuters.

Officials at the Isla refinery say the plant could begin processing next week when planned maintenance on one unit was completed, she added.

Isla normally processes around 200,000 bpd of Venezuela crude into products for PDVSA customers in the Caribbean and Central America.

However, PDVSA has been planning to import products from the restarted Curacao refinery to Venezuela, where the strike by opponents of President Hugo Chavez has forced the world's No. 5 oil exporter to purchase fuel abroad.

Runs in Venezuela's 1.3 million bpd refining system have been cut to 75,000 bpd due to the strike, which has the support of thousands of PDVSA workers.