Although the Government is trying to convince Venezuelans that the Amuay disaster is something normal and has little to do with bad management or bad maintenance, evidence seems to show the opposite and is mounting fast. The leak of the report by the refinery’s underwriter is quite damming, it makes for great reading for geeky types. (Yes, like me!)
I will not bore you with the details, but I will note that the report says on page 8, that while US$1 billion was budgeted for maintenance, only US$314 million was actually spent. Less than US$ 2 billion was spent in the last four years. So, when Asdrubal Chavez boasts that US$ 4 billion were spent on maintenance in the same period, he clearly is talking about how much was budgeted, not spent (Aren’t you glad he is in charge of he electric network now? Just kidding!)
Part of the problem is that Bariven, the PDVSA affiliate in charge of imports, is now in charge of all the food imports of PDVAL, thus it’s just in time ability of yesteryear is no longer there. The result, even if maintenance needs to be done, there are no materials for it. Somewhere else in the report i t says that materials procurement now takes 60 weeks. Yes, over one year for imported materials and only, yes only 30 weeks for local materials. Sounds like a dysfunctional company to me.
The report also says that the target of PDVSA was to have 80% of the maintenance be preventive and 20% corrective. However, the report concludes that it ended up being 69% corrective, 31% preventive.
The report says that major maintenance suffers delays of one to two years, while routine maintenance had a low in 2009, it has no evidence that this was corrected, other than it was “reported” to management, which probably was out campaigning.
These people should be fired!
The report says that fire pump testing has not been performed yearly as required (page 14) and describes fires and explosions that are anything but “normal”
But Chavistas seem now convince that the sinking of the Adan Pearl is “normal”, that the Cavim weapon factory exploding is “normal”, that Conviasa’s six accidents in four years are “normal”, that half a billion dollars stolen from PDVSA’s pension funds is “normal”, or $800,000 in bills in suitcase is also “normal” and that daily blackouts all over the country are “normal”.
What is not “normal” is how this people think a country should be run.
The Devil's Excrement 
September 3, 2012 at 10:13 am
[…] Venezuelan Governmentt Spins On Amuay Disaster, Evidence Mounts Of Insufficient Maintenance […]
September 1, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Well, not to diminish the magnitude of the disaster, and the fact that a few people lost their lives, didn’t we suspect PDVSA would sooner or later start crumbling ever since Chavez fired 20,000+ trained employees (technicians, engineers, managers, etc.) only to put in place Chavistas? It is actually surprising disasters like this haven’t happened earlier. But, as I read somewhere years ago regarding Lybia’s oil industry (yes, during the now defunct Gadaffi’s rule), Lybia’s oil industry was disfunctional, inefficient, etc., etc., but good enough to keep Gadaffi in power. Wouldn’t Chavez follow the same model with PDVSA? After all, between the 1M barrels of oil sold at market value and what they collect in taxes (as I understand, representing even more $ than what comes in from the oil) is, as was Lybia’s case, “good enough” to keep Chavez and his Robolucionarios in power. I fully expect, unfortunately we shall see more disasters like this in times to come, for as long as Chavez is in power… And, the lack of investment in Improvements is not limited to PDVSA, it is endemic, affecting the entire country’s infrastructure.
September 1, 2012 at 7:22 am
Hugo actually quoted P.T. Barnum when He said, “The show must go on”.
Phineas Taylor Barnum (July 5, 1810 – April 7, 1891) was an American showman, businessman, scam artist and entertainer, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the circus that became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Barnum served two terms in the Connecticut legislature in 1865 as a Republican. He said of himself, “I am a showman by profession…and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me,” and his personal aims were “to put money in his own coffers.”
Unbelievably revealing!
August 31, 2012 at 8:41 pm
Stupidest quote of the year:
presidenciales del próximo 7 de octubre, en los que aspira a su tercera reelección consecutiva, depende “en buena manera el futuro de la humanidad”.
“El futuro de la humanidad y no estoy exagerando nada”
August 31, 2012 at 6:21 am
I just took a peek at the report, but the pictures and the legends are enough reason to be concerned. The whole thing makes the sleazy auto repair shops look like the pinnacle of virtue and competence…
August 31, 2012 at 12:10 am
Contal de que no vole, digo explote o sobre calientei un reactor nuclear de Estados Unidos ! Compaladre, yo duermou tranquilito en mi casita de madera y cacles directos dentro de la madera sin conductos de metal, como todas las cas de Norte America ! Caray pa que casas de concreto quedaran pol el suelo, que bombasou ! Es veldad ! Un escape de gas o combustiblei o de aire, a veces no sei sabe cuanto peligroso es el !
August 30, 2012 at 10:47 pm
Miguel: If I remember correctly, somewhere in the report they mention over 200 “incidents” in 2011, 100+ of those were fires. Whoever had access to this report knew that a big one was coming sooner or later.
How could they just go merrily along ignoring the warnings?
September 1, 2012 at 12:57 pm
A point was reached long ago in the sorry state Venezuela is in now where the big bosses (i.e. Rafael Ramirez, et al) feel they’re so “atornillados” that, though they’re not stupid and know “the big one is coming”, they may feel even something as big as this accident cannot change their status quo. And incidentally, to me this degree of decomposition only point towards them (Chavistas) being more than ready to cheat their win out of the upcoming October elections.
August 30, 2012 at 9:56 pm
Check out this video of one of the revolution’s agrarian developments on Aragua state, hyped on Aló Presidente by the thug in chief himself and now completely abandoned:
August 30, 2012 at 11:25 pm
They are already fighting back. Dirty as always…
http://www.el-carabobeno.com/nacional/articulo/41055/ordenan-investigar-incidente-con-equipo-de-globovisin
August 31, 2012 at 10:39 am
I am shocked. I know I shouldn’t be anymore- but this is double stupid,
horrible and to think that even the President and VP stand before the world
and point fingers and threaten Globovision for reporting the truth.
This is insanity.
August 30, 2012 at 6:43 pm
I´m from Venezuela. and Chavez doesn´t fool me.
August 30, 2012 at 6:23 pm
“These people should be fired!”
Damn well should be and soon!
And what about Cabello today -saying no to an investigation
by AN?
August 30, 2012 at 4:13 pm
I know for a fact the United States government have too many internal issues than to bother with Venezuela’s internal problems. The problem is this: Too many thieves in PDVSA with their hands in the “cookie jar!” Venezuela will never be able to move to the next level, until they get rid of all the crooks first and then, wait two generations later.
August 30, 2012 at 3:54 pm
http://www.lapatilla.com/site/2012/08/29/varela-las-carceles-del-pais-estan-en-total-normalidad/
Iris Varela….
August 31, 2012 at 4:48 am
She is right, if she means “normal” for Chavista Venezuela. She also claimed that conditions in the jails are better than free people outside. She might be right about that too, for many.
But, I would prefer most country’s “horrible, inexcusable, and unacceptable” over Venezuela’s current “normal”.
August 30, 2012 at 3:24 pm
There’s a guy by the name of James Petras, a Marxist Professor from New York, who’s claiming that this incident was US sponsored sabotage. Really? I know this may be a bit loopy but,…. is it in any way possible that the Chavistas will tie this thing to the Americans? This whole thing reminds me of Hermann Goering and the Reichstag fire of 1933. Back then the Nazi’s found a half-wit Dutch guy to pin the blame on. Nearly eight decades on I wonder what the Chavistas have in store for us…..
August 30, 2012 at 4:22 pm
James Petras, along with his cohort Stephen Lendman, never met a Marxist they didn’t like. They are big apologists for the FARC too: The laptop info was all put there by the CIA and Colombian intelligence etc.
An essay from either of them should be taken no more seriously than El Comandante claiming the CIA is poisoning him.
August 31, 2012 at 8:38 am
I agree totally. In fact, I have seen pictures of a US plane which is said to have brought “fire-fighting foam” which was used to put out the blaze. That’s a funny thing to do if your aim is sabotage.
August 30, 2012 at 3:00 pm
There is a report from friends in the area that the death toll is up to 152 including mostly families outside of the fence. Is it possible for the government to suppress information of that magnitude?
August 30, 2012 at 6:20 pm
I guess I am not up to date- I had heard a couple of days ago that -maybe
40 more were missing but noone really knew-because they were “vaporized”
P.S. -This was from a worker in the plant -he did not say people outside
of the plant…
Point is- he claimed “noone really knows”..I assume it is because the chavistas control all information and reports? Does anyone know anything
about this?
August 31, 2012 at 1:44 pm
and those corpses that were found before anyone else could also had being “vaporized” after the fact.
I heard a report from the Church, that they had a number well above the “49” offcial number accounted for. The church will use that info politically as ussual though….
August 30, 2012 at 9:05 pm
yes it’s possible. they do it everyday. it’s called ‘the show’
August 31, 2012 at 7:35 am
I don’t believe I ever saw a report with numbers of PDVSA workers. Only national guard and families. It wouldn’t be normal for many workers to be in the field at 1:00 a.m. on a Saturday night. But if they were responding to a known leak, there could have been a large group at ground zero. It would be easy to suppress the count within PDVSA as government and PDVSA are one and the same. More difficult outside the fence.
August 30, 2012 at 2:23 pm
Excelente diablo.
The lack of reference for large mayorities in Venezuela is abused by this irresponsible Regime to spin shamelessly as required.
A great deal of eduaction and information must be forwarded to counter this ingnorance.
How much was the budget and spent on education in Colombia for example, how many schools were built, improved on , etc how much $$$ per pupil, indictors to compare what is done else where to what passes as normal in Venezuela.
I beleive this elightment is never really carried out because th
e incumbent is not interested, obviously; and the wanna be, is not reallly interested either. Lets not change the petrostate model, but just take el coroto for him/her self….
for example, In Canada, polititians loose their jobs and careers over a $300 dollar lunch expense that is deemed to be outreageously expensive by the public….
Can you imagine local politicos worrying about their expense accounts being public…. NO. Even worse, can you imagine the public being intrested in overseeing their public servants’s performance, costs, NO.
Big cultural gap here!