Citgo Aruba Refinery | production, oil and gas industry

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Open in 1924 as the Lago Oil & Transport Co. Ltd as a transshipping port by the Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company to transfer oil from the Lake Maracaibo to refineries in the United States. In 1928 the facility was purchased by Standard Oil who added a small refinery to the facility. In 1938 to get around a prohibition on the sale of aviation fuel to England from the US, Standard expanded the refinery began shipping the fuel directly from Aruba. BY 1942 it had become on the largest refineries in the world. Due to its importance to the Allied war effort, the refinery was attacked in the early morning hours of February 16, 1942 by the U-156.
Following the WWII, the refinery was operated by Exxon until 1985 when it closed the plant. In 1986 the Aruban government who sold it to Coastal who reopened it. Later it was sold to Valero Energy which ran the refinery until 2010 when it was shutdown again.
In June, 2016, the Aruban government announced that it had signed a 25-year deal with Citgo to reopen the refinery to refine diluted crude from Venezuela.