Pequiven races to avert ethylene blast: Update

State-owned petrochemicals producer Pequiven said emergency crews depressurized a damaged ethylene storage tank at its Ana Maria Campos complex, averting a potentially catastrophic accident.

Pequiven ordered the emergency evacuation of the 3.5mn t/yr complex known as El Tablazo at about 9am local time after a storage tank holding ethylene started bulging and cracking.

Emergency crews managed to reduce the tank's internal pressure level in a little over two hours, a Pequiven official at the complex said.

Pequiven suspended the evacuation protocol about 2pm local time, but most of the workers already had gone home for the day, the official said. Normal operations will resume overnight, the official added.

The ethylene is being transferred from the damaged tank to other nearby storage, the official said. Pequiven has not determined yet if the damaged tank can be repaired or must be dismantled and replaced, the official said.

Pequiven has not issued any statements on today's emergency at El Tablazo. "A small ethylene leak was contained quickly," a senior Pequiven executive in Caracas said.

The energy ministry said El Tablazo is operating normally. But two Pequiven officials in Zulia state said the complex is operating at less than 30pc of nameplate capacity because of gas and imported feedstock shortages, and frequent power outages.

The tank's vertical walls are "ballooning outward at several points and numerous cracks have been detected," a Pequiven industrial security official at the facility told Argus earlier today. The official declined to give more details including the capacity of the failing storage tank, but said it was overfilled due to operator error.

"El Tablazo's workers were evacuated as a precaution. We can't risk another Amuay-scale tragedy at El Tablazo," the Pequiven official said, referencing a lethal olefins explosion that killed dozens in August 2012 at state-owned PdV's 635,000 b/d Amuay refinery.

Emergency crews at El Tablazo are working as quickly and safely as possible to vent the pressure and transfer the ethylene to other tanks, the official said.

El Tablazo's petrochemicals production and storage assets are in "sub-optimal condition due to poor maintenance and the resignation since last year of hundreds of skilled workers," the official said.

Pequiven says El Tablazo has a design output capacity of 3mn t/yr of petrochemical products including ammonia (300,000 t/yr), urea (400,000 t/yr), ethylene (635,000 t/yr), polypropylene (144,000 t/yr), caustic soda (130,000 t/yr), MVC (130,000 t/yr), PVC (120,000 t/yr), high-density polyethylene (160,000 t/yr), low-density polyethylene (80,000 t/yr), linear low-density polyethylene (180,000 t/yr) and ethylene glycol (86,000 t/yr).

Insufficient maintenance of the over 40-year-old petrochemicals production units at El Tablazo has been a problem for over a decade, reflecting Pequiven's chronic cash flow deficit caused by the combined impact of strict government exchange controls and heavily regulated local petrochemicals prices.

El Tablazo's biggest operational challenge is a lack of reliable natural gas supplies, Pequiven officials say. Frequent plant equipment breakdowns, regional power outages and a critical shortage of hard currency to finance equipment and feedstock imports are also major factors in El Tablazo's operational paralysis.