Cardón’s 310,000-barrel-per-day plant went dark after a gas-line fire near its diesel hydrotreater. Workers evacuated, no injuries were reported, and PDVSA offered no immediate explanation.
An explosion and fire shut down Venezuela’s second-largest oil refinery Tuesday, taking the entire 310,000-barrel-per-day Cardón plant offline.
Reuters reported that a gas line connecting Cardón’s diesel hydrotreater caught fire. Eight sources said the blaze forced a complete halt, including the plant’s boilers. Workers evacuated after explosions, and the fire was extinguished in less than an hour.
No injured workers had been reported. State oil company PDVSA did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
Cardón sits in Falcón state inside the 955,000-barrel-per-day Paraguana Refining Center, Venezuela’s largest refining complex.
The fire puts another hole in a fuel system already battered by breakdowns. Reuters reported that fires, power interruptions, and outages regularly hit PDVSA facilities, cutting into the domestic supply of gasoline and diesel.
It’s also reported that emergency crews brought the blaze under control, while authorities had not publicly disclosed its cause.