WILLEMSTAD – At the beginning of this year, the Curaçao refinery announced that it will be back in operations. But still, there is no sign of life to be seen, meaning there is not even smoke coming out of the refinery.

According to a source, they had some start-up problems. Especially the Curaçao Refinery Utilities (CRU) plant. The refinery itself also had some problems but, according to the source, these are now as good as solved.

They knew in advance that the start-up would take several days since both plants have been inactive for a long time. But now it’s almost the end of January and still no sign of life.

Other sources within the CRU confirmed that they indeed had start-up problems, but they now have enough steam and water. They can deliver, especially now that refinery has solved its problems.

The refinery is important for the economy of the island. It is one of the main sources of income and the government wants to see the refinery operational as soon as possible.

“Our plan is to operate the refinery in 2019 as we have for the past 30 years,” a PDVSA spokesman said, asserting that misinformation and bias had distorted the public´s understanding of Isla’s challenges. He attributed last year´s operational issues to problems with the separate Curaçao Refinery Utilities (CRU) power plant that services Isla but acknowledged that crude supply was “not optimum”.

A senior executive close to management suggested the restart is more of a “public relations” effort by PDVSA, rather than a sustained revival of long-stalled operations. The state-run oil company of the neighboring South American country delivered 200,000 barrels of Tía Juana Heavy crude (TJP) to the refinery on the island in December, a volume that is equivalent to about one week of refining operations, the executive added.

The partial restart comes on the eve of the expected signing this month of a preliminary agreement with Saudi Arabia's US refining arm Motiva by government-owned Isla holding “Refineria di Kòrsou” to take over after PDVSA’s lease contract expires at the end of this year. Although this process is currently on hold.

However, Venezuelan officials have indicated an interest in retaining access to the Bullenbaai deep-water oil transshipment and storage facility that is part of the lease, because it’s a key part of the company’s logistical network in the Dutch Caribbean.