Crude Processing Resumes at Venezuela’s Cardon Refinery Post-Blackout

Venezuela's PDVSA has begun restarting units at its 310,000-bpd Cardon refinery following a recent power blackout, sources told Reuters. Two distillation units are back online, processing around 100,000 bpd of crude—about one-third of the facility’s capacity.

(Reuters) — Venezuela's state-run PDVSA was on Wednesday restarting several operational units at its 310,000-barrel-per-day Cardon refinery, the country's second largest, following a power blackout that halted the facility earlier this week, two sources said.

Outages and electricity interruptions frequently hit the South American country's aging refining network, sometimes creating a scarcity of motor fuels.

Two of Cardon's four crude distillation units were processing oil while two related plants also were in service early on Wednesday, the sources said. Workers were starting a protocol for the facility's reformer to resume operations, they added.

The two distillation units were processing a combined 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude, about a third of Cardon's total capacity, according to one of the sources.