CARACAS, venezuela — A huge explosion rocked Venezuela’s biggest oil refinery and unleashed a ferocious fire Saturday, killing at least 39 people and injuring more than 80 in one of the deadliest disasters ever to hit the country’s key oil industry.
Balls of fire rose over the Amuay refinery, among the largest in the world. Government officials pledged to restart the refinery within two days and said the country has plenty of fuel supplies on hand to meet its domestic needs as well as its export commitments.
The explosion shattered walls of nearby shops, ripped out windows from homes and left the surrounding streets covered with rubble and twisted scraps of metal.
President Hugo Chavez declared three days of mourning and ordered an investigation to determine the cause of the explosion. “This affects all of us,” Chavez said. “It’s very sad, very painful.”
Vice President Elias Jaua, who traveled to the area in western Venezuela, said on state television late Saturday that at least 39 people were killed by the explosion. He said that the dead included 18 National Guard soldiers and that six of the bodies had not yet been identified. Other officials said that the dead included a 10-year-old boy.
Officials said firefighters had controlled the flames at the refinery on the Paraguana Peninsula, where clouds of smoke still billowed in the afternoon.
The blast occurred about 1:15 a.m. when a gas leak created a cloud that ignited, said Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez. He said an adjacent National Guard post was severely damaged by the blast, along with nearby homes.
“That gas generated a cloud that later exploded and has caused fires in at least two tanks of the refinery and surrounding areas,” Ramirez said. “The blast wave was of a significant magnitude.”
Images in the early hours after the explosion showed the flames casting an orange glow against the night sky. One photograph showed an injured man being wheeled away on a stretcher.
Some people in surrounding areas were evacuated or fled, officials said.
Ramirez said a panel of investigators would investigate the cause of the gas leak. A prosecutor was appointed to lead the investigation and troops were deployed to the area.
The explosion hit an area of storage tanks in the refinery, and nine of the tanks were damaged, Ramirez said.
“All of the events happened very quickly,” Ramirez said. “When we got here in the middle of the night, … the fire was at its peak.”
He said supplies of fuel had been cut off to part of the refinery and that the fire had been brought under control, though the flames continued to burn up fuel in some of the tanks. Firefighters were using foam to extinguish the flames in one of the remaining tanks.
Amuay is part of the Paraguana Refinery Complex, which also includes the adjacent Cardon refinery. Together, the two refineries process about 900,000 barrels of crude per day and 200,000 barrels of gasoline. Venezuela is a major supplier of oil to the U.S. and a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Ramirez said the state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA should be able to “restart operations in a maximum of two days.”
In terms of international oil markets, the disaster is not likely to cause much of a ripple, said Jason Schenker, an energy analyst and president of Austin, Texas-based Prestige Economics LLC. Noting that other refinery accidents and shutdowns regularly occur around the world, he said, “There’s likely to be relatively limited impact on global crude or product pricing.”
