Venezuela's national oil company PdV plans to restart limited crude processing this week at its 635,000 b/d Amuay refinery after a blackout and fire shut the plant on 20 September.
According to four PdV workers who spoke with Argus during an unauthorized tour of Amuay over the weekend, PdV expects to partially restart the refinery's 104,000 b/d fluidized catalytic cracker and distillation unit 4 by the middle of this week. But the workers warned of possible delays.
Four other distillation units at Amuay are out of service indefinitely because PdV is barred by US sanctions from importing the needed spare parts, the workers said.
Amuay had been the only one of PdV's refineries that was operating prior to the shutdown.
Amuay and the nearby 305,000 b/d Cardon refinery comprise PdV's 940,000 b/d CRP refining complex on the Paraguana peninsula in Falcon state. The CRP accounts for over 72pc of the company's 1.3mn b/d domestic refining capacity, all of which is currently out of service.
State-owned utility Corpoelec restored electricity supply to the CRP within 36 hours of the blackout, which the oil and electricity ministries have blamed on lightning strikes during a thunderstorm.
But the blackout that affected all of the strategic peninsula gave PdV no time to implement safe shutdown protocols for its few operational units, the workers said.
Amuay, once considered among the world's largest and most modern refineries, had been processing about 120,000 b/d of crude before the blackout and subsequent explosion in an 85,000 b/d hydrotreatment unit.
The Cardon refinery has been down since July. Argus was unable to gain access to Cardon's installations.
Amuay's 85,000 b/d hydrotreatment unit (HDAY3) was destroyed by the fire and will remain out of service indefinitely, the workers said.
It is unclear how PdV expects to replace Amuay's lost hydrotreater, which is essential for stripping sulfur from vacuum gasoil earmarked for the FCC.
PdV as of today has no operational domestic refining capacity, leaving the company completely dependent on imports of motor fuel, which is in critically short supply across the country.
Venezuela has suffered up to five multi-state blackouts since March, disrupting operations and damaging key processing units at the CRP which relies on the dilapidated national power grid.
PdV's 140,000 b/d El Palito refinery in Carabobo state has been out of service since 2017.
The 190,000 b/d Puerto La Cruz refinery in Anzoategui where Korean-Chinese consortium Hyundai Wison is executing an over $8bn technology upgrade also has been mostly shut down this year.
PdV headquarters in Caracas and the oil ministry did not respond to requests for more details on the status of the CRP.
