Venezuela vows to invest USD 1.5 billion in Isla refinery

Energy
Venezuela's government promised to invest USD 1.5 billion in Curacao's Isla refinery, which has been shut down for the last 10 days due to power failures, a refinery spokesman told Curacao newspapers on Wednesday.

The project, aimed at improving productivity and quality of byproducts manufactured by Curacao's 320,000 bpd refinery, will run from 2011-2015, said refinery spokesman Kenneth Gijsbertha to Curacao newspapers Extra and Vigilante.

A Curacao court ruled last year that the state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) must upgrade the aging refinery, which was opened early last century, to meet environmental standards, Reuters reported.

About 1,000 workers went on strike last week to request repairs in the unit that provides water and electricity to the refinery. Meanwhile, Venezuela has threatened to terminate the leasing contract.

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IISS: The FARC financed Chávez before 1999

10:07 AM. DIPLOMACY. Admired by the Colombian guerrilla after his coup attempt in 1992, the then lieutenant colonel Hugo Chávez Frías received financial support by the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) for his projects after his capture that year. This mostly explains the relationship and "debt" between the parties, as revealed by a paper of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) of the United Kingdom.