 | This article needs to be updated.(March 2023) |
| El Palito oil spill | |
|---|---|
 El Palito refinery, where the spill occurred | |
| Location | El Palito refinery,  Carabobo Carabobo state,  Venezuela |
| Date | July 2020 |
| Cause | |
| Operator | Petróleos de Venezuela |
| Spill characteristics | |
The El Palito oil spill was an oil spill that occurred at the El Palito refinery, Venezuela, in July 2020.
The spill was estimated to be 25 thousand oil barrels into the Triste Gulf due to malfunctions in the cooler of the heat exchanger systems that use seawater to lower the pressure. In an attempt to double production from 20,000 to 40,000 daily oil barrels to 61,500 at the catalytic cracking and 87,500 bpd at the distillation tower, "multiple leaks" developed. The refinery had been unable to produce gasoline for several weeks. Experts argue that this was the tenth shutdown of the refinery in three months. The spill reached the eastern coast of Falcón State and Morrocoy National Park. [1] [2] [3]
Another spill occurred in February 2021. [4]
Orimulsion is a registered trademark name for a bitumen-based fuel that was developed for industrial use by Intevep, the Research and Development Affiliate of Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), following earlier collaboration on oil emulsions with BP.
Pemex is the Mexican state-owned petroleum company managed and operated by the Mexican government. It was formed in 1938 by nationalization and expropriation of all private oil companies in Mexico at the time of its formation. Pemex had total assets worth $101.8 billion in December 2019 and as of 2009 was Latin America's second largest enterprise by annual revenue, surpassed only by Petrobras. The company is the seventh most polluting in the world according to The Guardian.
Repsol S.A. is a Spanish multinational energy and petrochemical company based in Madrid. It is engaged in worldwide upstream and downstream activities. In the 2022 Forbes Global 2000, Repsol was ranked as the 320th-largest public company in the world. As of 2022, it has 24,000 employees worldwide.
Arturo Uslar Pietri was a Venezuelan intellectual, historian, writer, television producer, and politician.
Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. is the Venezuelan state-owned oil and natural gas company. It has activities in exploration, production, refining and exporting oil as well as exploration and production of natural gas. Since its founding on 1 January 1976, with the nationalization of the Venezuelan oil industry, PDVSA has dominated the oil industry of Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter.
Petróleo Brasileiro S.A., better known by and trading as the portmanteau Petrobras, is a state-owned Brazilian multinational corporation in the petroleum industry headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The company's name translates to Brazilian Petroleum Corporation — Petrobras.
EP Petroecuador is the national oil company of Ecuador. Ecuador who is a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and, although it is the smallest member, the country produced 531,000 barrels of crude oil per day in 2019. The oil corporation is a significant part of the Ecuadorian economy. The petroleum industry has expanded to the production of refined commodities such as gasoline, liquefied petroleum, and jet fuel. The government of Ecuador is highly dependent on the revenues from the energy sector to support its budget and finance state projects.
Petróleos del Perú, better known as Petroperú, is a Peruvian state-owned enterprise and private law dedicated to the transportation, refining, distribution, and commercialization of fuels and other petroleum products. It has been owned by the State of Peru since 1969, is considered among the taxpayers to the treasury, and currently employs more than 2,500 people. Petroperú invests in education, health, and other sustainable development projects throughout the Peruvian territory.
Venezuela has the largest conventional oil reserves and the second-largest natural gas reserves in the Western Hemisphere. In addition Venezuela has non-conventional oil deposits approximately equal to the world's reserves of conventional oil. Venezuela is also amongst world leaders in hydroelectric production, supplying a majority of the nation's electrical power through the process.
The Paraguaná Refinery Complex is a crude oil refinery complex in Venezuela. It is considered the world's second largest refinery complex, just after Jamnagar Refinery (India). The Paraguaná Refinery Complex was created by the fusion of Amuay Refinery, Bajo Grande Refinery and Cardón Refinery. The Paraguana Refinery Complex is still the largest refinery in the Western Hemisphere. As of 2012, it refined 955 thousand barrels per day (151,800 m3/d). The complex is located in the Paraguaná Peninsula in Falcón state and the western coast of Lake Maracaibo in the Zulia state. The complex accounts for 71% of the refining capacity of Venezuela and it belongs to the state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).
On 7 June 1978, the Chilean Oil tanker Cabo Tamar ran aground at San Vicente Bay, near Talcahuano, Chile, and released 12,000 tons of oil.
During the crisis in Venezuela, governments of the United States, the European Union, Canada, Mexico, Panama and Switzerland have applied sanctions against Venezuela, as well as against specific government entities and individuals associated with the administration of Nicolás Maduro. The sanctions came in response to repression during the 2014 and the 2017 Venezuelan protests, and activities both during the 2017 Constituent Assembly election and the 2018 presidential election. Analysts, including the US Government Accountability Office, have concluded that these sanctions have likely contributed to the existing decline of the Venezuelan economy. According to a 2023 poll, 74% of Venezuelans do not support the sanctions.
The following lists events in the year 2020 in Venezuela.
Despite having the largest oil reserves in the world, Venezuela has experienced fuel shortages several times throughout its history due to both economic and political reasons. The general strike of 2002–2003 resulted in the stoppage of the oil industry, which caused fuel shortages domestically, and Nicolás Maduro's administration has experienced chronic gasoline shortages.
FSO Nabarima is a floating storage and offloading vessel that is permanently moored offshore of Venezuela at the Corocoro oil field in the Gulf of Paria, located between Venezuela and the island of Trinidad. After production at Corocoro ceased in 2019 following United States sanctions on the Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) and following years of neglect, Nabarima fell into a state of disrepair, and was reported in 2020 to be at risk of spilling her cargo of about 1.3 million barrels of crude oil.
The Orinoco Mining Arc (OMA), is a resource-rich area in Venezuela that has become a hub for illegal mining. It was opened to development in February 2016 as the "Orinoco Mining Arc National Strategic Development Zone", and has been operating since 2017; The Orinoco Mining Arc covers 12.2% of Venezuelan territory with an area of 111,843 km2. Gold is the most important resource in the area, and there are also deposits of bauxite, coltan, and diamonds. According to former minister Roberto Mirabal, the Mining Arc has a potential mineral value of $2 trillion US dollars.
The 2022 Callao oil spill is a crude oil spill that occurred on 15 January 2022, on the coast of the Ventanilla district in the constitutional province of Callao, Peru, after abnormal waves caused by the volcanic eruption in Tonga and alleged negligence on the side of company Repsol. It has been qualified by the Environmental Assessment and Control Agency as the greatest ecological disaster that has occurred in Peru.
The Amuay tragedy was an explosion of the Paraguaná Refinery Complex in Punto Fijo, Venezuela. The explosion resulted in the death of 48 people and injured 151 others.
An oil spill occurred December 2023 at the El Palito refinery in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela.