It is false that PDVSA is distributing the necessary fuel for the country, as Juan Carlos Díaz, vice president of Commerce and National Supply of the state corporation, said. Endless queues at service stations, official statements acknowledging failures in refineries, frequent visits by the authorities to filling plants and refineries and a new gasoline distribution scheme in the country, deny it.
Text: Ligia Perdomo
“Here we are observing that all the distribution is being carried out in a timely manner, we assure the population that Pdvsa distributes the necessary fuel for the country,” said Juan Carlos Díaz, vice president of Commerce and National Supply of PDVSA, according to a note from press published on its website, after a visit by authorities to the Yagua filling plant, located in the state of Carabobo. The statement is false.
The strong crisis in the dispatch of fuel observed since mid-May has led the oil authorities to carry out a campaign on social networks, in which it shows an alleged normality in gasoline stations, many of them without vehicles in their facilities.
But these images contrast with the reality that citizens encounter on a daily basis: huge lines of vehicles at the pumps that sell fuel at a subsidized price.
Díaz went to Yagua to “inspect the operation of the filler and the exit of the cisterns”, in a demonstration that everything is fine. But it’s not.
Long lines have been a topic of conversation in any setting in the last month. And social networks display what PDVSA cannot hide with a campaign of apparent normality, which they seek to position with the hashtag #Elcombustiblequenosmueve.
This is one of the videos of the day (June 15, 2023) posted on the Twitter account of Pdvsa Comercio y Suministro Nacional, recorded at 7:10 am by a person who says that there is “enough fuel for users.” Here one would have to ask how much is enough for users. For all?
And so, in the accounts of Pdvsa Comercio y Suministro Nacional and Pdvsa, there are dozens of videos recorded in different service stations in the country that seek to give the sensation of normality. A normality that has not existed for several years now due to the deterioration of the oil industry, recently aggravated by the stoppage of the catalytic cracking unit of the refinery in Punta Cardón (Falcón) or the stoppage of the one located in El Palito (Carabobo). , which resumed operations on June 11.
The low fuel production, palpable since the middle of the last decade in the interior of the Republic in principle, had one of its worst moments during the first quarter of 2020. The arrival in Venezuela of the covid-19 pandemic allowed the government of Nicolás Maduro manage the shortage with a population in quarantine.
In June 2020, a nationwide scheme was imposed to supply gasoline to vehicles through license plate terminals at stations with subsidized sales and at dollarized stations, each liter is priced at $0.50.
*Read also: Iván Freites: there are at least four more weeks left with gasoline problems
With the passage of time, and faced with diminished income, PDVSA has been increasing the number of so-called international stations (for selling at dollarized prices). And three years after the measure and the promises to recover the country’s refining park, PDVSA continues to face production problems and aims for half of the country’s 1,600 service stations to sell at dollarized prices by the end of 2023.
Díaz says that Pdvsa distributes the necessary fuel for the country. But their mere presence in Yagua, together with a multidisciplinary team that also supervised other stations in Carabobo (and they have been doing so in other entities), is a sign that something is not going well. Even the Minister of Petroleum Rafael Techellea himself toured the facilities of the El Palito refinery on June 11.
The lack of fuel is such that Pdvsa was unable to maintain the distribution and supply schedule in force since 2020 and is imposing more restrictions on access to gasoline. The measure already covers almost the entire country.
At the end of May, a video that went viral on networks and broadcast on WhatsApp surprised many. The governor of Mérida headed the draw -through a screen- for the vehicle registration terminals that would serve the service stations selected by the authorities in that entity. And here not only those that sell with subsidies come in, but also international ones, which is undoubtedly a sign that the little gasoline produced in Venezuela and that imported from Iran is even more scarce.
Díaz affirms that the necessary gasoline is distributed to users. But the governor of Falcón, Víctor Clark, reported on June 8 that the “contingency” due to gasoline shortages would last for three weeks in that entity and acknowledged that it would affect the inventory and daily disposal of tankers in the country.
*Read also: Governor of Falcón warns that gasoline crisis can last three weeks
The authorities’ response has been to manage the already limited fuel production by expanding the rationing scheme to other entities in the country.
For June 16, the schedule for the office in the Metropolitan District of Caracas, Miranda and Aragua was as follows:
On June 16, the line at the service station that is diagonal to the Torreón, in El Paraíso, looked like every day: endless, as the journalist Yudeima Sotillo shows.
On June 9, the El Diario website showed the long line at a pump in La Boyera (Miranda state).
And the Notitarde newspaper reflected the same thing in the Yagua-San Diego variant, in Carabobo.
Pdvsa’s refining does not reach 10% of installed capacity
The economist and oil expert, Rafael Quiroz Serrano, told Unión Radio on June 14 that refining does not exceed 10% of the installed capacity of the entire refining park of 1,300,000 barrels per day. The week ending June 8 closed at 120,000 barrels a day, he said. While meeting the demand of the domestic market requires 225,000 barrels per day, he commented to EsPaja the week of June 8.
With vehicle queues multiplying at the country’s service stations, recurring failures in the fuel refining process, dispatch schedules with more restrictions, official declarations recognizing them and frequent visits to filling plants and refineries by the authorities looking for “solutions” , PDVSA is not distributing the necessary fuel, as reported in Yagua by the Vice President of Commerce and National Supply of PDVSA, Juan Carlos Díaz. Therefore his statement is false.
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