Curacao refinery puts three employees on leave amid bidding probe
(Reuters) - The Curacao government-owned Isla refinery has placed its managing director and two other employees on leave while the supervisory board investigates a bidding process to choose a new operator for the 335,000-barrel-per-day Caribbean facility, the company said.
A statement by the refinery’s supervisory board said it opened an investigation after receiving allegations about the process. The board did not identify who made the allegations or the specific nature of them.
Managing director Roderick Van Kwartel was put on leave, the statement said. Van Kwartel could not immediately be reached for comment. The company did not identify the other two employees.
The board appointed Marcelino de Lannoy, founder of Curacao-based consulting firm Quality Council NV, as acting managing director of the refinery.
In July, the Isla refinery said it was considering 15 offers to run the facility, now at minimum processing capacity since the contracted operator, Venezuela’s state-run PDVSA, became locked in a legal dispute with U.S.-based oil producer ConocoPhillips. (Reporting by Sailu Urribarri, Marianna Parraga and Gary McWilliams; editing by Grant McCool)
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