When You Fire The Experienced Workers

And hire political supporters, you really shouldn't be surprised when maintenance is done improperly and accidents occur. You can just ask Hugo Chavez. There has been an "operational event" at Venezuela's Amuay refinery. This "event" could be heard and felt 10 kilometers away. Around these parts we generally call events like that "explosions", but we never were good a socialist-speak.

Three witnesses in the area of the refinery told Reuters on Saturday they felt and heard an explosion on Friday night.

"The explosion was felt from 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) away," one resident of the area told Reuters by telephone.

PDVSA said in a statement that "an operational event was registered that affected a furnace of the Hydrosulfurization Unit Number 4 of the Amuay refinery" at 9:21 p.m. on Friday night."

The El Nacional newspaper on Saturday reported an explosion at Amuay and blackouts in the neighboring towns, citing witnesses in the area.

PDVSA's statement did not define the operational event and did not confirm whether or not it had been an explosion. The unit was in startup, PDVSA said, following a maintenance stoppage announced in September.

The "operational events" are coming fairly frequently these days.

PDVSA has suffered from frequent operational problems this year, including a massive fire at an Amuay crude distillation unit in July and an explosion at the neighboring Cardon refinery in March that killed two workers.

Having been involved in the energy field, I can be fairly certain that when things like this keep occurring, there is a maintenance issue at the root of it. And it will continue to get worse. Firing the experienced workers and putting your party faithful in the jobs will continue to pay dividends for Chavez.

Just not the good kind of dividends.