Efforts to extinguish the fire at the Puerto La Cruz refinery. Photo: Alba Ciudad.
September 19, 2022, a fire was detected in the Puerto La Cruz refinery, Anzoátegui state. The Venezuelan oil minister, Tareck El Aissami, reported in a telephone contact with Venezolana de Televisión that lightning struck the oxidation and treatment lagoon that is located within the refinery facilities and contains hydrocarbon residues.
“At this time, the firefighters and the refinery’s protection and insurance teams are taking action on the fire,” El Aissami said at 3:45 p.m. on Monday. “We have deployed all the fire department services of the Anzoátegui governorate and the rest of the facilities in the east of the country.”
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El Aissami indicated that “none of the facilities, tanks, or plants of the refinery itself have been compromised. However, there is a considerable fire inside the refinery and we have activated all the protocols required to deal with this contingency, and we are following up, step by step, until we have total control over the fire.”
So far there are no victims, even though the fire is in the vicinity of the refinery, the minister said. The operating areas have been evacuated and are committed to fighting the fire, in order to confine it to the lagoon and then completely extinguish it.
Momentos de angustia se vivió en Puerto la Cruz hoy pic.twitter.com/cBqEBjMJFs
— Lizbeth Barrios (@liz19b) September 19, 2022
At five in the afternoon, Carlos Pérez Ampueda, deputy minister for risk management and civil protection, reported that 95% of the fire in the refinery was under control. “Fire officials are doing cool-down work,” he wrote via Twitter.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/KW/SL
