Venezuelan formal: Authorities thwart oil refinery attack

Venezuelan officials say they’ve thwarted an attack on a key refinery as the country with extensive oil reserves struggles to fulfill its domestic gasoline calls for

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s oil minister claimed Friday that stability forces have thwarted an assault on a critical refinery as the country with vast oil reserves struggles to meet its domestic gasoline needs.

Two Venezuelans were being arrested Thursday and investigators confiscated explosives the suspects planned to use in an assault on El Palito refinery on the nation’s northern Caribbean coast, Minister of Petroleum Tareck El Aissami claimed in a televised announcement.

Officials showed photographs of explosives and other substance as evidence of what El Aissami known as a terrorist plot. He claimed the two suspects confessed to getting orders from Colombian officials.

Aissami known as upon Venezuelan oil staff to be vigilant amid an ongoing risk from international adversaries such as the United States and Colombia to harm the South American country.

As soon as-rich Venezuela holds the world’s greatest oil reserves, but the state-operate oil industry is in collapse — one thing critics blame on mismanagement and corruption and the federal government attributes to sabotage and U.S. sanctions aimed at driving socialist President Nicolás Maduro from ability.

Venezuela recently has been relying on gas shipments from Iran, a different U.S. adversary.