Venezuela Cerro Negro says syncrude unit restarts

www.forbes.com Reuters, 03.07.03, 1:49 PM ET CARACAS, Venezuela, March 7 (Reuters) - Venezuela's foreign-financed Cerro Negro extra-heavy oil project has restarted its synthetic crude processor after a boiler problem shut the unit on Thursday, project partner ExxonMobil Corp. (nyse: XOM - news - people) said on Friday. "Operadora Cerro Negro SA (OCN) informs that its upgrader unit is restarting operations today," said a statement from ExxonMobil, which is partnered with state oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) in the Cerro Negro joint venture. The upgrader, which has the capacity to process 120,000 barrels per day (bpd) of extra heavy oil from the Orinoco region into 108,000 bpd of light synthetic oil, was shut due to a problem with one of its furnaces, the statement said. Cerro Negro and three other projects which upgrade Orinoco oil are in the process of restarting after being shut by an oil strike started on Dec. 2. The strike, widely supported by PDVSA employees, caused a disruption in the Orinoco projects' natural gas feedstocks from the state oil firm. Cerro Negro, which has been producing about 60,000 bpd of extra heavy crude since it resumed operations in late February, continued pumping oil into storage tanks despite the one-day shutdown at the processor. The four Orinoco projects, which partner PDVSA with international oil firms, had been producing over 400,000 bpd of Venezuela's total output of 3.1 million bpd in November.