CARACAS, June 27 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela's Attorney General Tarek William Saab said Wednesday that 11 employees of the state-owned oil company Petroleum of Venezuela (PDVSA) were arrested for irregularities affecting companies in the Orinoco Oil Belt.
The arrested workers were employed at the "Jose Antonio Anzoategui" crude oil storage and loading terminal in eastern Venezuela.
Saab said that they were suspected of acts of sabotage targeting the oil industry.
The detained employees, he said, had been involved in two events that had caused losses to the state of 14 million U.S. dollars.
The first incident on June 14 sparked a halt to the supply of naphtha to two companies, PetroMonagas and Petrosinovensa, which saw losses of 175,000 barrels of crude and 11.375 million U.S. dollars due to the stop in production.
The second "act of sabotage" occurred on June 16 and 17 "when severe errors were committed in the processing of loading (crude) onto two boats, the Aries Sun and Nerissa," said the attorney general.
Saab detailed that the Aries Sun should have loaded 400,000 barrels of Zuata 300 crude, produced by PetroCedeno, a PDVSA subsidiary, while the Nerissa was set to load 1.8 million barrels of Merey crude.
Before the alert given by PetroCedeno, it was noticed that 200,000 barrels were missing from the Aries Sun, while the Nerissa was overloaded with 162,000 extra barrels.
Investigations also showed who was responsible for mishandling the loading, with PDVSA forced to compensate the clients for losses of 2,733,780 U.S. dollars.
Alongside the 11 arrested, 90 employees of PDVSA have been disciplined, including 23 senior managers, Saab said.
