Report reveals maintenance gaps in Amuay

An external audit conducted in March in the two refineries of Paraguaná peninsula, including Amuay, found a long list of maintenance glitches.

The paper, prepared by RJG Risk Engineering for underwriter QBE, also warned against poor protection against fire in the facilities, delays in scheduled equipment replacement, slow implementation of corrective measures as recommended and the occasional existence of "clouds of volatile fumes" in the facilities, as quoted by The New Herald.

The Update Report of Recommendations of Risk Improvement also found 222 reported incidents at the two refineries in 2011, "including some 100 fires, many of these being in contaminated pipe trenches."

"Although there is a good procedure for incident investigation, we were disappointed to not(e) that few had progressed past the stage of setting up a study committee, and only nine were 'closed', with recommendations carried out," stressed the report prepared after an inspection made in Amuay and Cardón refineries.

The report mentions as well that "the most lethal industry accident in Venezuela to date" was internally described as "a blast of a fume smoke and subsequent fire, resulting from the uncontrolled release of flammable, volatile hydrocarbons from the containment of the processing system; subsequent ignition [of the substance] and fire in processing units."

"We do not assess the likelihood of accidents suffice to say that regardless of any steps of design, construction, inspection, maintenance and operations to be taken, the likelihood of the worst type of events remains and there will be the possibility of many events of potential minor losses," the paper highlighted with regard to the risk of a fume cloud.

The report said that positive progress was noted, although a "stronger proactive approach is necessary."