Venezuelan oil company PDVSA is recently considering re-launching another petrol-producing unit, hoping to put an end to the petrol shortage in the country, which sits on top of the world’s largest reserves of crude oil.
PDVSA plans to restart the gasoline-producing unit at its CRP refining complex within two weeks, following the restart of two raw distillation facilities earlier this week, Argus reported on Thursday, quoting company officials and internal documents it has seen.
Venezuela currently produces gasoline from one unit at the Amuay refinery and another unit at the Cardon refinery. Amuay and Cardon currently operate 135,000 tunnels a day, “but that level of production needs to be maintained and other units needed for gasoline production, including the liquid catalytic cracker, need to restart,” a manager at PDVSA told Argus.
In mid-July, PDVSA resumed gas production at Cardon, which at the time was the only operating refinery in the country experiencing severe gas shortages.
Venezuela’s 1.3 million bpd capacity is mostly offline, due to the cash crisis at PDVSA and Venezuela, the crumbling sector, and years of lack of investment in maintenance and repairs.
The lockdown to curb the coronavirus pandemic in the country already in a severe economic collapse has reduced the demand for gasoline, but shortages have persisted.
Venezuela has recently seen some delay in its fuel shortage problem, after Iranian tankers shipped gasoline and components to the Latin American country in open opposition to US sanctions.
Nicolas Maduro’s regime tried to reduce the country’s fuel shortage, but a new scheme of subsidized gasoline failed to put an end to the long lines in which Venezuelans stood in queues to refuel their cars.
Despite shipments from Iran, Venezuelans remained waiting in line for gasoline. Meanwhile, the United States is looking for ways to cut Iranian gas supplies to Venezuela.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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