US Energy Department certifies Venezuelan reformulated gasoline

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Monday, June 23, 2003 By: VHeadline.com Reporters

State news agency VENPRES reports that a US Energy Department Commission has certified the dispatch to New York of 316,000 barrels of reformulated gasoline, giving parallel authorization and product quality approval to the Venezuelan product alongside production from US-based refineries.  The news was announced by Ivan Hernandez, director general of the Paraguana Refinery complex in western Falcon State.

"In effect the US certification conforms to international ecological norms on the reduction of contaminating particle emissions ... the quality of our Venezuelan energy products has been put to test without any shred of proof ... there has been much made of the opposition stoppage to claim that our products lack rudimentary quality standards, but in the presence of representatives of prestigious international organizations we have been able to demonstrate the exact opposite."

"Versions of how US operators have been worried about the quality of our products are pure rumors which lack any form of substantiation ... the US Department of Energy has been able to certify the quality and operability of the Venezuelan petroleum industry to the extent that they have authorized the export of not just reformulated gasoline but a whole range of other products," Hernandez told reporters.

The 316,000 barrels cargo left the Amuay-Cardon refinery in Falcon State today, Monday, on the Espirit Express bound for New York ... the first of five similar cargoes scheduled for July delivery.  "This is an historical  achievement," Hernandez says.  "After the sabotage of our petroleum industry which caused so much damage and losses to the country, we have been able to reestablish the production of green gasoline (CPR) for the eastern seaboard of the United States in full accordance with the US Clean Air Act aimed at progressively reducing poisonous particle emissions such as carbon monoxide which is seen as one of the precursors to smog."

Hernandez rejects opposition Venezuelan media claims that it has been impossible for PDVSA to produce CRP ... "all production and refinery units in the largest petroleum complex in Latin America are in perfect working order and at required levels of operation ... we are now processing 730,000 barrels of crude oil per day ... the only thing we had been previously been unable to get operative was a TAME oxygenation unit, but that is now up and running and we are now able to maintain operational supplies to our commercial clients in the United States."

The Amuay-Cardon refinery's CPR maximum capacity is reckoned to be 940 barrels per day ... "but we haven't needed to push production so high since 730,000 bpd has been our normal production over the last couple of years with 100,000 bpd of leaded for domestic consumption in Venezuela and 45,000 bpd unleaded."