Gasoline stocks in Venezuela will be exhausted in a month, said Thursday representatives of workers of the state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa), which described the situation of fuel shortages as “extremely serious.”
“Here there is gasoline for a month,” said Luis Hernandez, director of the Oil Workers Front of Monagas, and said that “there will be total shortages.”
During a demonstration by several unions in Caracas, Hernández said that “the situation of gasoline is extremely serious” and that, in particular, it affects 16 states that “are critical”, among which Táchira, Mérida, Portuguesa and Bolívar.
In recent months, the shortage of gasoline has gradually spread in the cities of the interior of the country, especially in border states, which has led in some regions to the imposition of programmed rationing for the sale of fuel.
“Right now, there is discrimination, what is the discrimination, what for Caracas, there is gasoline, but in the interior of the country, in 16 states, there is that debacle,” said Hernández.
Experts have warned that the shortage of fuels will gradually worsen, since PDVSA has difficulties recovering the extraction of hydrocarbons and its refineries are working well below their installed capacity.
For Hernandez, other elements to consider to explain the shortage of gasoline are “the lack of foreign exchange” and “the lack of additives”.
Almost all of the six refineries in the country “are totally paralyzed, simply that of the Refining Complex of Paraguaná is working at 10%”, explained the workers’ representative, who added that “there is no way to put them to work , because to put them to work costs a transformation “.
He added that the availability of the two varieties of gasoline that is traded for the automotive fleet (91 and 95 octane) is also at risk, because “we are seeing the total paralysis of the 95 octane, the one that is arriving is the 91 octanes “.
Regarding imported gasoline, a solution that the Government has implemented to meet fuel demand, Hernandez said he has doubts about the quality of the product that is being acquired in Russia.
He also warned that the additives that are currently incorporated into hydrocarbons “are not the corresponding ones” for the 91 and 95 octane varieties, which puts users and their vehicles at risk.
He regretted that despite the limitations for users, smuggling to bordering countries is maintained, with the intention of reselling gasoline at international prices.
According to Hernández, Maduro’s administration does not care “that there is a paralyzation of the automotive fleet, they are just interested in remaining in the government and that our Venezuela falls to pieces”.
With information from EFE
