By Elizabeth Ostos.
The former manager of the Paraguana Refinery, engineer Emilio Herrera, said that the only option to the Maduro regime is to import gasoline to supply the internal demand of the Venezuelan market.
He said: “The Venezuelan refineries are not producing fuel, and this must be informed, responsibly, to the country”.
In an interview with El Pitazo, the 20 years experience specialist expressed that citizens are paranoid because of the critical gasoline shortage in the country and that Maduro must speak with the truth to the country.
Herrera pointed out that none of the units of the national refining circuit, made up of the Paraguana Refining Center, El Palito, in Carabobo, and Puerto La Cruz-Guaraguao in Anzoategui is working.
- The government has announced that they are working on the recovery of the Paraguana Refining Center and the El Palito refinery.
Amuay and Cardon are in a state of industrial disability, and very few volumes of residuals, which are essential components of gasoline being produced. The El Palito refinery is not able of producing fuel. Those who have said it is working are lying to the country.
Engineer Herrera revealed that “in the hypothetical case that 300,000 barrels of crude are being refined at El Palito, what we technicians call full load, there are also several hydrocarbons necessary to mix and formulate gasoline and, at the moment, none of these are available, and therefore it would not be possible to compensate for the more than 500,000 barrels of gasoline consumed daily in the country before the mandatory quarantine”.
He added that to produce 91 or 95 octane gasoline, five types of hydrocarbons are required, which are mixed in special tanks. “This is a recipe that must be followed to obtain this product.”
- State media assured that the El Palito refinery is already mixing hydrocarbons and producing gasoline.
In the case of El Palito, a sort of branch of, smaller than Paraguana, the production capacity is lower. At the moment, El Palito is not producing anything that would generate liquid fuels to completely supply gasoline. The current situation is critical; there have been fires, which is something that is delaying its commissioning. The information that is circulating about the supposed operation of El Palito is false.
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- What alternative is proposed to supply gasoline to the distribution centers?
The only way to guarantee gasoline to Venezuela, even in a rationing scheme like the current one, is by importing from other nations. The national executive must speak frankly to the country and must explain why the national refining circuit was left unattended. At the moment, it is very difficult to produce fuel.
- What is the investment required to recover the national refinery complex?
That’s a lot of resources. Trying to rebuild the refineries would imply several dollars that would put the Republic in debt for the next 50 years. Those are huge calculations.
