Venezuela ratifies purchase of half Dominican refinery

[Judi Lynn]

CARACAS, Monday April 05, 2010
Venezuela ratifies purchase of half Dominican refinery

The Venezuelan government will buy indeed 49 percent of the shares of the Refinería Dominicana de Petróleo (Dominican Petroleum Refinery, Refidomsa), clarified on Monday in Santo Domingo Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs Nicolás Maduro, months after the Venezuelan government dismissed the operation.

"The partnership (…) will come true," Maduro told reporters on leaving a meeting with Dominican President Leonel Fernández. According to the minister, the purchase of shares was delayed for "technical troubles."

The buyout will be settled next week, the Dominican press reported, as quoted by AFP.

In January, Minister of Energy and Petroleum Rafael Ramírez ruled out the operation for considering it "barely convenient" for the country. "There is not interest. We do not deem it appropriate and will not do it," he said at that time.

http://english.eluniversal.com/2010/04/05/en_eco_esp_venezuela-ratifies-p_05A3693091.shtml
Opposition newspaper

[protocol rv]

1. More wasted money

Why would we want a refinery in the Dominican Republic? We had to invite foreigners to come to Venezuela to build oil upgraders, using our money to build in Venezuela makes more sense.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Opposition DUer...on cue.

Alternatives to the corpo-fascist 'news' monopolies on Venezuela and Latin America (for starters):

http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/

[protocol rv]

3. Returning to the purchase of the refinery by PDVSA

It seems PDVSA bought 49% of an old, small, refinery. They paid extra for it too - half of the refinery had been sold by Shell recently for about 20 % less. And now let us talk business. A small refinery in the Caribbean isn't a good investment for PDVSA. The refinery has a very small capacity, about 35 thousand barrels per day. To give you an idea of how small this is: PDVSA's Isla refinery on Curacao has a capacity of 335 thousand barrels per day.

http://www.pdvsa.com/index.php?tpl=interface.en/design/readmenu.tpl.html&newsid_obj_id=2072&newsid_temas=29

PDVSA's Amuay Refinery is reported to have 636 thousand barrels per day capacity

Here's a reference from PDVSA, in which it says the complex on Paraguana has 940 million barrels per day capacity, but this is a mistake, the three refineries on PAraguana, together, have 940 thousand barrels per day capacity (under their new political management, PDVSA has a tendency to make this type of mistake, they issue inconsistent figures with too many or too few zeroes, but it's only a propaganda web site, so this is understandable).

http://www.pdvsa.com/index.php?tpl=interface.sp/design/readmenu.tpl.html&newsid_obj_id=64&newsid_temas=17

This will give you an understanding that, in the great scheme, this tiny refinery in the Dominican Republic is meaningless.

Now let us visit the PDVSA website where they discuss their Oil Sowing Plan (Siembra Petrolera).

http://www.pdvsa.com/index.php?tpl=interface.en/design/readmenuprinc.tpl.html&newsid_temas=32

Please focus on the item about refineries which reads:

" To increase refinement capacity in Venezuela is one of PDVSA’s strategic goals. Oil Sowing Plan undertakes the creation of new refineries: Cabruta (with capacity for 400,000 extra-heavy crude barrels per day), Batalla de Santa Ines (50,000 barrels) and Caripito (50,000 barrels per day destined to asphalt production). With these three new refineries and the improvement of the existing ones, PDVSA’s processing capacity on Venezuelan soil will be increased to 700, 000 barrels a day."

As you can see, they said (and I repeat, they said) they had plans to build new refineries in Venezuela with a total capacity of 700,000 barrels per day. But none of them are being built. Which means Venezuelan workers don't get the highly paid construction jobs they would if the refineries were being built here.

Meanwhile, PDVSA has invested in a refinery in Cuba, at Cienfuegos. This wasn't such a bad idea, because Cienfuegos is larger, 65 thousand barrels per day. But the investment there isn't finished, and it should be done to increase capacity to 165 thousand barrels per day. Why isn't this being done now? PDVSA has no money and Venezuela's debt rating is lousy (I already posted our new risk rating earlier).

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aIFAcfl8P5KE&refer=news

Please refer to this PDVSA publication, in which they discuss the great gas pipeline of the south. This was another one of those irrational projects touted by the government, which thanks to the Brazilians and Bolivians will never be built. It was a crazy scheme, LOL. And this is the problem with the way the business is run at PDVSA, and why this nation's economy is cratering right now, the main welath creation engine of the Venezuelan people is managed by individuals who don't really know much about the business.

http://www.pdv.com/interface.en/database/fichero/publicacion/1421/62.PDF

I realize you posted the two pro-government news sites to try to give people here an alternative. But these sites don't really address the subject of our discussion. I on the other hand am trying to have a rational discussion, in which I explain logically why I think the way I do, and try to support what I say with references to specific information to help me make my case. I suggest that, if you want to do better, you should try to do that. Try using search engines and support your case. I do.