Venezuela is restarting a natural gas pipeline key to the Jose refining and petrochemical complex and electricity generation more than a week after a fire knocked the line out of service.
"From Sunday afternoon on, the process of restarting began," an oil industry source told Argus on 25 July.
The fire near the Aguasay 5A compression station on the Muscar-Soto gas pipeline broke out on 16 July, and oil minister Tareck El Aissami said three days later that pipeline service would be restored within hours.
State oil company PdV declined to comment.
Gas is finally arriving to Jose and "they are starting to turn on some plants" inside the vast Anzoategui state complex, but some auxiliary services still have not been reconnected, a PdV engineer who works in the area where the plants and the pipeline are told Argus.
Water service is set to be restored to the complex and most of it should be back in operation by 26 July, the source said.
In Valencia, state petrochemical giant Pequiven and other, smaller companies are also receiving gas supply for the first time in several days, another source said.
In the US, exiled union leader Ivan Freites said that while the emergency may be over for now, the fire took place at a hub where three major pipelines connect and this could also affect upstream production.
