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LatAmOil COLOMBIA LatAmOil
It was originally built to pump Colombian gas to Venezuela at the rate of up to 5bn cubic metres per year and would have to be repaired before use. It has remained idle since 2015, when PdVSA announced that it would not renew its supply contract for gas to Colombia.
As of press time, the Venezuelan NOC had not confirmed GEB’s statements on its pro- posal for resuming gas shipments through the cross-border pipeline. (GEB is majority owned by the municipal government of Bogota.)
PdVSA’s idea could prove useful to Colom- bia, which faces the risk of running short on gas by 2025-2026. However, the project would face certain obstacles – namely, the risk of sanctions penalties, as the US government is still seeking to restrict investment in Venezuela’s oil and gas industry.
Bogota would have to obtain special exemp- tions from Washington in order to proceed with work on this initiative or risk running foul of the sanctions regime. ™
The cross-border pipeline terminates in Ballena, Colombia (Image: PdVSA)
VENEZUELA
PdVSA reportedly diverts Iranian crude to another refinery because of quality issues
VENEZUELA’S national oil company (NOC) PdVSA has reportedly not been able to process crude received from Iran at its 140,000 barrel per day (bpd) El Palito refinery as planned because of quality issues.
Several sources told Argus Media last week that PdVSA had been forced to redirect Iranian oil received in line with a bilateral deal that Teh- ran and Caracas signed in March of this year to the Centro de Refinacion Paraguana (CRP), a 430,000-bpd complex in the western part of the country. The NOC had to take this step because the Iranian feedstock was causing problems at El Palito, they said.
One of Argus Media’s sources was Ivan Fre- ites, an exiled leader of the labour union rep- resenting PdVSA workers. He stated that the Iranian oil had been so acidic that operational difficulties had arisen at the refinery’s distilla- tion tower. In light of these problems, the NOC decided to send the crude to CRP for processing, he stated.
Another source echoed Freites’ statements about the acidity of the crude, saying that the
The Iranian crude was too acidic for PdVSA’s El Palito refinery (Photo: PdVSA)
pH level of the Iranian feedstock had proven problematic in light of the condition of equip- ment at El Palito. The refinery has not been well maintained, and corrosion has been allowed to spread unchecked, he explained.
Meanwhile, a third source told Argus Media that PdVSA had experienced problems for many days after introducing Iranian oil into its systems.
Iran has been supplying Venezuela with crude oil that has a specific gravity of around 28 degrees API.
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 32 10•August•2022