Carlos Camacho, Argus Media
CARACAS
EnergiesNet.com 03 05 2024
Venezuelan state-owned oil firm PDVSA has restarted a unit that produces MTBE at its Jose complex in Anzoategui state for the first time in five years, the company said.
The oxygenate will be used “to optimize the octane rating of the gasoline distributed in Venezuela,” PDVSA president and energy minister Pedro Tellechea said on social media on Monday. Years of underinvestment in refinery maintenance in Venezuela has led to periodic gasoline shortages.
The Super Octanos unit, with a nameplate capacity of 600,000 t/yr, had produced MTBE only for the domestic market for many years. It stopped operations after former US president Donald Trump began imposing comprehensive sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry five years ago, which also cut off imports of MTBE from the US.
Venezuela imported 562,750 metric tons (t) of MTBE from the US in 2014, but this fell to 30,703 t in 2019 before the flow dried up because of the sanctions in 2020.
argusmedia.com 02 27 2004
