WILLEMSTAD - Today the refinery will again be hit hard. More than two hundred employees will be laid off as was announced a few days ago.

These employees have not been selected to play a role in the follow-up process with the Curaçao Oil Refinery Complex (CORC). This involves a total of just over 500 employees, 240 of whom will keep their jobs for the time being.

For the time being, because there is still no operator. CORC has not yet found investors that would enable a 'restart'. Significant environmental investments also make that process difficult.

Since August 20 last year, the refinery has had to meet new standards for, among other things, sulfur dioxide, equal to or better than those used by the World Health Organization (WHO) internationally. As a result, it is no longer possible to burn sulfur, as PdVSA and Shell used to do.