Venezuelan refinery restarts gasoline exports

<a href=ogj.pennnet.com>By OGJ editors

HOUSTON, Apr. 2 -- The Paraguana Refining Complex (CRP) in northwestern Venezuela was expected to restart its exports from the Amuay refinery with a shipment of 360,000 bbl of unleaded gasoline destined for the US, OPEC News Agency reported.

Quoting state news agency Venpres, OPECNA said CRP General Manager Ivan Hernandez said the tanker Nico Cuarto was in the process of loading and was scheduled to depart Wednesday.

He said this was the first export shipment from Amuay since the reactivation of production operations that were disrupted as a result of Venezuela's general labor strike that started in December.

It was anticipated that two more export shipments would be made in coming days via a shipment of 250,000 bbl and another of 300,000 bbl, he said.

"The production destined for export from the Amuay center was in the order of three tankers a month. However, sometimes two shipments departed a month. We cannot determine that amount because it depends on national consumption, but it was somewhere around 600,000 bbl of gasoline that was sent to the foreign market," Hernandez said.