MOSCOW (MRC) -- The 209,000-barrel-per-day Aruba refinery, operated by a unit of US Citgo Petroleum, is putting a USD685 million refurbishing project on hold due to sanctions imposed by the United States on Venezuela, reported Reuters with reference to the company's statement.
Citgo is owned by Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA.
Works for modernizing and converting the refinery into an oil upgrader, approved in 2016, will likely be halted by Feb. 27 and workers directly involved laid off, Citgo Aruba said in a statement.
The facility’s management and the island’s government plan to continue seeking solutions to avoid having to completely halt the project, it said.
As MRC informed previously, in September 2018, a unit of Citgo Petroleum resumed long-delayed work to refurbish an idled, 235,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) oil refinery on Aruba. Due to a lack of credit, Citgo Aruba Refining in February had slowed efforts at the plant amid US financial sanctions imposed since 2017 on its parent company, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). Under a USD685-million project that was approved in 2016 by Aruba’s government in a 25-year lease contract, Citgo aims to revamp and restart a facility that has been idled since 2012 when the previous operator, US-based Valero Energy, halted crude processing due to low profits.
MRC