Fire hits new gas processing plant in Venezuela

OREANDA-NEWS. September 02, 2015.  Cardon 4, a joint venture between Spain?s Repsol and Italy?s Eni, shut down a new natural gas processing plant in Venezuela after a fire broke out yesterday.

The Tiguadare plant, located on the Paraguana peninsula in Falcon state, receives gas from the 16.3 trillion ft3 offshore Perla field that recently started initial production of 150mn ft3/d.

The fire erupted at around 7:00pm local time as a result of a "rupture in the gas heating system in the production train of the installation which is in a testing stage," Cardon 4 chief executive Nicolas Foucart said in a statement issued late yesterday.

The fire was immediately brought under control and there were no injuries, he said.

"The reasons that may have caused the breakdown of this equipment, as well as related damage, are currently being evaluated," Cardon 4 said.

"This incident caused a reduction in supply to the domestic market of 150mn ft3/d of gas during phase one of the project. This represents 6pc of domestic consumption," Venezuelan state-owned PdV said. "The situation is controlled and in the coming hours gas supply from Cardon 4 is expected to be normalized."

PdV is the offtaker for Cardon 4, which is owned by the European partners.

The gas from Perla is mainly supplying PdV?s 940,000 b/d CRP refining complex in Paraguana and power stations run by state-owned utility Corpoelec in western Venezuela.

Corpoelec said it would revert to diesel to maintain the dispatch of its thermal power stations until the gas supply is restored.

Perla?s gas production is scheduled to ramp up to 450mn ft/3 at the end of 2015, gradually reaching a peak of 1.2bn ft3/d in 2020. The field?s condensates are eventually slated to be exported under a separate joint venture between the Cardon 4 partners and PdV.