PdV receives diesel cargo, patches gasoline unit

PdV received a cargo of ultra-low sulfur diesel today at its Amuay terminal, close to where the Venezuelan state-owned company is running into more snags at its main refining complex.

The cargo came aboard the Malta-flagged Gemma that loaded at Milazzo on 19-21 June. Italy's Eni and Kuwait's state-owned KPC run a 235,000 b/d refinery at Milazzo, which received a 1mn bl cargo of Venezuelan crude last week on the Greece-flagged Delta Tolmi.

The cargo was confirmed by the manager of the Gemma, Super-Eco Tankers Management, which told Argus that "said cargo is exempted from any sanctions (because it is) being transported for humanitarian purposes."

Previous reports that the Gemma was transporting gasoline to Venezuela were inaccurate, the company said.

Eni and Spain's Repsol import Venezuelan crude and deliver products back under debt and swap arrangements tied to their upstream operations in Venezuela, which has been the target of US oil sanctions since January 2019. The sanctions do not have a direct secondary component, but the US has been aggressively targeting individual tankers and shipping companies in recent weeks in an effort to drive down revenue to President Nicolas Maduro's government.

The US sanctions are mainly focused on gasoline, Venezuela's core transport fuel. Recent gasoline supply from Iran is now running low and domestic production is sporadic at best, leaving Venezuela with scant fuel, as evidenced by the return of vehicle lines at Venezuelan service stations in Caracas.

Jury rigging

At the CRP, PdV restarted the 305,000 b/d Cardon refinery's fluid catalytic cracker (FCC) after workers jury-rigged a faulty compressor that took the unit off line late on 6 July after two fires earlier in the day.

PdV accident investigators determined that a fuel leak at the 86,000 b/d FCC sparked the fires at 11am and 4pm ET. Both were extinguished quickly, and the source of the fuel leak was patched, according to two union officials. No structural damages or injuries were reported.

The FCC had been producing up to 30,000 b/d of gasoline before the first fire erupted, according to a PdV downstream manager and the union officials at the refinery. The unrelated compressor failure took the unit down for several hours until workers partially repaired it, the officials added.

"The compressor was manufactured in the US, but we're using incompatible Chinese-made parts and that is causing problems," one of the union officials explained.

PdV is now relying mainly on Cardon's limited gasoline output to supply the local market after nearly exhausting Iranian gasoline and alkylate blendstock that arrived at the end of May and early June.

Cardon and the nearby 635,000 b/d Amuay refinery comprise the 940,000 b/d CRP refining complex in Falcon state that accounts for about 72pc of PdV's domestic refining capacity of 1.3mn b/d.

The 140,000 b/d El Palito refinery is also producing about 10,000 b/d of off-specification gasoline, a union official at the refinery in Carabobo said.