What! Me Worry? The Fire at the World's Second Largest Refinery Won't Have Much Effect on Prices -- Analyst

Refinery fire in Venezuela.

Amuay, with the capacity to process 645,000 barrels of oil a day, was halted as a result of the explosion, Lugo told Union Radio. The Amuay, Cardon and Bajo Grande refineries form the Paraguana complex, with capacity of about 950,000 barrels a day. It is second in size to Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL)’s Jamnagar refinery in India, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. 

I did not know this; this suggests the Venezuela refiner complex is the second largest refinery (in terms of capacity) in the world. I would have expected this in Europe, possibly even Saudi Arabia.

I'm posting this story only to see how forecasts work out. This was the forecast posted in the story at the link:

The incident will probably have little effect on crude prices, while possibly putting “upward pressure” on gasoline and distillate prices, Lipow said. The refinery supplies a “significant portion” of its products to the domestic market, he said.

The accident is one of the worst at a refinery in recent memory, Lipow said. “This is one of the extremes. It’s quite extensive.”

The blast affected nine storage tanks for crude and products. And pipelines. And morale.