Venezuela's 645,000-b/d Amuay refinery in Falcon state is in the process of resuming normal operations after an electrical outage on Nov. 4 halted processing activities at the plant, state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) said.
A power failure, which occurred at about 9:10 p.m. local time in the Amuay portion of Venezuela’s Paraguana Refining Center (CRP), resulted in the shutdown of unidentified processing units, according to a Nov. 5 statement from PDVSA.
Using the refinery’s emergency safety protocol, CRP staff immediately were able to bring the situation under control and begin the process of safely restarting the impacted units, PDVSA said.
While there were reports that smoke emissions could be observed from unidentified areas of the refinery, the state-owned company confirmed that preliminary inspections showed the incident did not result in any fires, explosions, or injuries at the plant.
The 310,000-b/d Cardon refinery, which comprises the other half of the Paraguana complex, remains fully operational, PDVSA said.
No details were disclosed regarding the outage’s impact to Amuay’s production, but the company did confirm it has sufficient fuel inventories to meet domestic and international supply commitments.
An investigation into the cause of the electrical failure currently is under way.
