Page 9 - LatAmOil Week 12 2020
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The drop in output has led the Peruvian Hydro- carbons Society (SPH), a private industry asso- ciation, to lobby for the government to extend assistance to the energy sector.
Earlier this week, the group noted that Peru had succeeded in pushing crude oil production
up to 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the first half of March, up by 20% on the figure reported for the same period of 2019. Without help, these gains could evaporate in the face of the coro- navirus pandemic and the collapse in world oil prices, it said.
Sempra Energy’s subsidiary IENova built the existing Costa Azul facility (Photo:
Curacao refinery operator seizes BOPEC from PdVSA subsidiary
BONAIRE
VENEZUELA’S national oil company (NOC) PdVSA has lost control of another foreign asset to Refineria di Korsou (RdK), the owner of the Curacao oil-processing plant.
According to Argus Media, RdK seized all the shares of Propernyn BV, a Dutch registered company owned by PdVSA. This move gave it control over Propernyn’s main asset – the BOPEC terminal in Bonaire, which can handle 10mn barrels of crude oil and petroleum prod- ucts. (Bonaire was a part of the Netherlands Antilles until 2010, when it acquired the status of a special municipality within the Netherlands. The company explained in a video message to BOPEC employees that it had taken this step because of PdVSA’s failure to settle its debts.)
Argus Media quoted a summary of the mes- sage as saying: “With this action, RdK seeks to obligate PDVSA-owned Refineria Isla Curacao to comply with payments long due. If, despite [this] action, PDVSA still does not comply, RdK will seek Dutch court ruling to sell all Propernyn BV shares, which could lead to public auction of thefacilitiesofBOPEC.”
Inspections
At present, the terminal is mostly idle. Last
October, a team of inspectors from the Dutch environmental, fire safety, occupational health, transport and water authorities conducted a review of the facility and concluded that BOPEC had failed to implement improvement projects.
This conclusion led inspectors to bar the ter- minal from using either of its jetties for loading and unloading crude oil and refined fuels. They did, however, permit BOPEC to transport resid- ual fuel oil from the terminal’s storage facilities to a nearby thermal power plant (TPP) owned by Contour Global. The TPP will use the fuel to generate electric power for local consumers.
Inspectors from the Dutch Environmen- tal and Transport Inspectorate (known by the acronym ILT) are due to return to the terminal next month for another round of monitoring. ILT representatives told Argus Media in Janu- ary that they had offered BOPEC “one chance to demonstrate during the upcoming inspection in April 2020 that the planned improvement pro- jects can be implemented in a short term and in a safe manner.”
It remains to be seen whether this deadline can be met, as travel restrictions related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak are likely to delay the visit.
Week 12 26•March•2020 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m
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