WILLEMSTAD - The Isla refinery still needs 27 million guilders to meet the obligations to former employees.

This concerns the fourth and fifth tranche of the redundancy scheme. The former operator of the oil refinery in Curaçao is in consultation with the government about the possibility of selling oil products that were seized last year.

They would have a market value of 105 million guilders. This was confirmed Lucas Beaujon, human resource manager at Refineria Isla, a subsidiary of the Venezuelan state oil company PdVSA.

According to Beaujon, Refineria di Kòrsou (RdK) seized one million barrels of crude oil, finished products and semi-finished products with a market value of 105 million guilders on 15 September 2020. “The 27 million should be deducted from that amount,” Beaujon says.

RdK would rather see a different solution. “The best thing would be if PdVSA decides to supply oil to RdK, so that we can sell it based on our Ofac license. That must be done before December 31, because then the license will expire," says the RdK Director Marcelino De Lannoy. The sale of the Venezuelan products is only possible with the green light from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) in Washington in connection with the US sanctions against the Venezuelan government.

In September last year there was still talk of RdK itself going to sell some of the oil products that have been seized in order to secure the payment of the fourth and fifth tranche of the redundancy scheme. "That's right," says De Lannoy.

“But it was the intention that the unions PWFC and Apri would participate in the seizure. The unions had promised that, but that has not happened,” said De Lannoy.