Venezuela’s Largest Refinery Complex Hit By Power OutagePublished: May 12, 2011

CARACAS (Dow Jones)–A power outage at Venezuela’s largest refinery complex partially shut down operations Thursday, a spokesman at the workers’ union said. The complex in Paraguana, located in the northwestern state of Falcon, is home to the 640,000-barrel-a-day Amuay refinery, the country’s largest, and the 305,000-barrel-a-day Cardon refinery.

The power failure forced a complete shutdown of Cardon while operations at Amuay were partially affected, the spokesman said. He did not say how long the facilities were expected to be down.

The news comes just days after officials at state oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela announced that the Amuay refinery had returned to fully operational. PDVSA announced late last week that a problem in Amuay’s air system had caused a shutdown of multiple units.

Venezuela has been plagued by problems with its electrical grid in recent months. Most recently on Monday, a major transmission-line failure resulted in blackouts for nearly 10 states. Officials have since announced rationing measures across several states.

Critics have long warned that insufficient investment into the country’s electrical infrastructure could weigh on economic development. Accidents and technical problems at a number of facilities have also been partly responsible for Venezuela’s declining oil production.

The International Energy Agency said in a report last month that it expected oil output to be hit by the ongoing electricity problems.
-Kejal Vyas, Dow Jones Newswires; 58-414-249-6821;