Lights out: PDVSA headqaurters in Caracas
PDVSA operations ‘normal’ after blackout
Venezuela's state oil company, PDVSA, said its operations were not affected by a blackout that hit large swathes of the country including crude producing regions yesterday.
A PDVSA official who asked not to be named said the company's refineries and other installations were operating normally despite the outage, which darkened the capital and major oil states like Zulia.
"Everything is perfectly normal, we are doing the analyses and evaluations normal in these cases," the official said, Reuters reported.
The government gave confused reasons for the blackout, with some officials blaming a forest fire that damaged a key power line and others citing problems at a hydro-electric dam.
Thousands of workers walked home amid traffic chaos in Caracas after the metro system ground to halt. The government said 85% of electricity supplies had been restored by mid-evening.