Western Venezuela to stay dark in August: minister

A blackout affecting nearly all of oil-rich Zulia state will likely persist through at least the end of August, Venezuela's electricity ministry says.

Maracaibo is the headquarters of state-owned oil company PdV's western division, which is producing around 300,000 b/d of crude, roughly a quarter of the nation´s total. Venezuelan oil production has been in a steep downward spiral for more than a year.

A PdV western division executive tells Argus that the blackout has caused major disruptions that could further erode output.

Now in its fourth consecutive day, the blackout was caused by a 10 August fire on part of a 230kV power transmission system attached beneath the 5.5mi (8.6km) General Rafael Urdaneta bridge spanning Lake Maracaibo near the city of Maracaibo.

The government says the blackout was caused by sabotage, an assertion privately rejected by officials of state-owned utility Corpoelec.

PdV has not issued any statements regarding its Maracaibo operations, including several joint ventures it operates with foreign partners on the lake's western coastline.

The company's plans to reactivate thousands of wells in the region will probably be delayed for months because of the blackout, the western division executive said.

Electricity minister general Luis Motta said today that Zulia's blackout would end by 31 August if Corpoelec repairs two underwater circuits consisting of seven transmission lines with a combined 230kV of capacity between the Punta de Palmas and La Peonia substations. These circuits have been out of service since December 2017, according to Corpoelec.

Repairing the transmission lines and related circuitry that connect Zulia to the rest of Venezuela could take several months, Motta said.

"Over 100m of transmission lines destroyed by the fire that saboteurs caused on the bridge must be replaced," Motta said.

Corpoelec is also trying to repair a third 400kV transmission system that crosses the lake on towers and has been down since first quarter 2018.

Before the bridge fire, Corpoelec was already rationing power across Zulia state for up to 18 hours a day because nearly 3GW of thermal power plants in the state are operating at less 15pc of capacity, according to Corpoelec.

A disgruntled senior Corpoelec official tells Argus that the government is "deliberately understating" the damage caused by the fire.

"The fire on the Lake Maracaibo bridge wasn't suppressed completely until almost 14 hours after it was first reported last Friday, and as of today (13 August) the site of the blaze is still so hot because of the melted asphalt road surface that Corpoelec transmission experts have not been able to conduct a thorough inspection and damage assessment," the official said.

"Over 6.2 miles of new transmission lines are needed, not of the patchwork repairs Motta is offering," the official added. "Corpoelec doesn't have the transmission cable in stock nor the dollars to import the cable, which means that the blackout could continue for months."

The government reopened a single eastbound lane of the heavily transited four-lane Lake Maracaibo bridge early yesterday after fire inspectors said a nearly 200m stretch of melted asphalt surface on two westbound lanes had cooled sufficiently to allow safe transit. But traffic in both directions "is backed up for miles beyond the bridge entrance on both sides of the lake," a Zulia state government official said.

People who normally use buses to transit the bridge are now hiring small fishing boats to cross the lake, but there aren't enough boats to handle the demand, the official added.