(Argus, 9.Jun.2019) — A fire yesterday near state-owned PdV’s 190,000 b/d Puerto La Cruz refinery killed at least three people.
Civil emergency and Anzoategui state firefighting officials blamed the fire on an electricity transmission cable that fell into a crude waste storage pond after an exploding transformer cut the cable.
A PdV official at the refinery blamed a lightning strike for sparking the fire at 4pm local time.
The refinery’s fire emergency crews could not be deployed because of a lack of equipment and supplies, including chemicals used to extinguish oil fires, an oil union official at the refinery said.
The fire blazed for over eight hours before Anzoategui state firefighters reinforced by emergency firefighting crews from PdV’s Jose terminal suppressed the flames.
Crude processing units at the refinery including a 35,000 b/d distillation unit near the site of the fire were not affected. The Puerto La Cruz refinery is currently inoperative mainly because of a lack of local crude feedstock, the union official said.
State-owned power utility Corpoelec declined to comment.
Oil ministry and PdV officials did not respond to requests for more details about the fire.
The victims were a family of three whose vehicle was set ablaze by flaming oil that spilled onto a nearby road.
A fourth individual was hospitalized in critical condition with third-degree burns over 80pc of his body, a civil emergency official in Puerto La Cruz said. None of the fatalities were PdV employees.
PdV’s extensive oil infrastructure is vulnerable to accidents as a result of years of neglected maintenance and a lack of spare parts for repairs. An olefins blast at the company’s 635,000 b/d Amuay refinery in 2012 took at least 40 lives.
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