Venezuela’s largest refining complex plans to operate next month at 42 percent of its 955,000-barrel-per-day capacity, a level that would require state-run oil company PDVSA to keep increasing fuel purchases, according to internal documents seen by Reuters.

Petroleos de Venezuela [PDVSA.UL] last week launched one of its largest offers on the open market in recent years to buy more than 6 million barrels of fuel and up to 9 million barrels of diluents for the second half of 2017.

The tenders come as the company known as PDVSA struggles to pay suppliers for previously imported cargoes, which in some cases have been waiting for months to discharge at Venezuelan ports.

PDVSA has few options to supply Venezuela’s domestic market and feed some of its refining units other than importing what it has been unable to produce domestically, according to the documents.

Venezuela’s Paraguana Refining Center, which consists of the Amuay and Cardon refineries, will process only 405,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude in July due to maintenance and a lack of light oil and spare parts, according to the documents and a union leader.

The original plan for July was to process 437,000 bpd, or 46 percent of capacity, one of the document says, close to the processing rates registered in recent months.

PDVSA did not reply to a request for comment.

Source: www.worldoil.com