BIG OIL REFINERY

Evening Star, Issue 19788, 11 February 1928, Page 17

BIG OIL REFINERY

One of the largest oil reiiucries in the world is on the island of Curacoa, in the Dutch West Indies, fifty miles off the coast of Venezuela, on the Caribbean Sea. Curacoa is the chief transhipping point for Venezuelan oil, says S. M. L. Maduro, Dutch shipping merchant, whose family has been established on the island for nearly a century. Venezuela is one of the greatest oil producing countries of the' world, but its chief port, Maracaibo, is too shallow to allow vessels of more than a few feet draught to cuter. Consequently, the crude oil is brought out iti small tankers and landed in Curacoa, which boasts a, large natural harbor, where steamers from all parts of the world stop in transit. About 12,000 tons a, day of crude oil are refined in the great plant of the Dutch Shell Oil Company, and this amount is steadily increasing, says Maduro. About 300 vessels a month pass through the busy port of Curacoa, which exports petroleum in enormous quantities to all parts of the world. Lime and phosphate mines and the recovery of salt by evaporation from sea water are other industries of the Dutch island possessions in the West Indies, of which Curacoa is the most important. The liquor that takes its name from this island is made from the rind of a special variety of orange.