Haina. With an investment of 91 million dollars, the Dominican Petroleum Refinery (Refidomsa) yesterday inaugurated four new spheres for the storage of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), which increases its reserve capacity to 380,000 barrels and further ensures continuous supply of this petroleum derivative widely used in homes, transportation and companies.
Now the LPG reserve capacity goes from 140,000 barrels, enough for only 14 days of consumption, to the new availability for 40 days.
That is the largest investment made by the state company since its creation in 1973.
The commissioning of the new storage areas was attended by President Luis Abinader, who highlighted that this investment ensures the supply of LPG in an economy as dynamic as the Dominican one and that it is an important step for security in the part of the country. energy of the country.
The president of the Board of Directors of Refidomsa, Leonardo Aguilera, explained that “this is a unique project, as it contemplated the simultaneous construction of four spheres, with a capacity of 60,000 barrels each (10 million, 80 thousand gallons) and all already certified under the ASME code, of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Aguilera said that the spheres are added to the continuous improvements made at the Puerto Viejo gas terminal in Azua, the new oil pipeline to the port of Haina, improvements in the port of Nizao and an inter-institutional agreement with the Itabo company, to do more functional and efficient ship terminal at the Haina Occidental dock.
“While this process lasted, we had to face the main challenge for us: keeping the national market supplied with LPG,” he said, to ensure that it never failed.
He highlighted that with this increase in LPG storage capacity, the problems that existed with increasing reserves are over.
The LPG storage capacity was 12,800 barrels in 1973 when it opened, then increased to 42,400 in 1988 and rose to 70,000 in 2002. The penultimate increase was up to 140,000 barrels.
Aguilera explained that now it will be possible to store 380,000 barrels, which means 15 million 960 thousand gallons of LPG.
He explained that the work began in 2021 and that it faced adversity due to the pandemic, a situation that affected maritime transportation and interruptions in the distribution chain that delayed the work.
