Electronic Sabatoge of Venezuela Oil Operations
Event Year: | 2002 | Reliability: | Confirmed |
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Country: | Venezuela | ||
Industry Type: | Petroleum | ||
Description: | In December 2002, PDVSA, Venezuela’s state oil company became embroiled in a bitter strike that saw extensive sabatoge. According to a report in Oil Daily, Ali Rodriguez (the head of the oil company) stated: “[...] we have suffered many acts of sabotage at the terminals, the refiners, and even to some well-heads in Lake Maracaibo. There were even instances of computer hacking which did a lot of damage since much of the operation is centrally controlled by computer.” Someone, possibly an employee involved in the general strike, remotely accessed a program terminal to erase all PLC programs in port facility. |
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Impact: | This and other physical sabatoge apparently cut Venzuela’s national production down to to 370,000 barrels per day, compared with 3 million barrels before the strike. Eight hours loss of production. Unable to load product into waiting tankers. |