MANAGUA – A group of 40 youths this week started a training course to learn how to construct and run the oil refinery that is going to be built in the northwestern department of León with Venezuelan money.
Luis Contreras, a Venezuelan technical expert in Nicaragua to train the technical advisors, said that the mixed company Albapetroleos of Nicaragua (ALBANISA) will administer the various projects related to the construction and later managing of the refinery.
Contreras told Sandinista television that in the phase of construction, some 3,500 jobs will be created.
He added that the refinery will generate an additional 1,500 jobs once it is complete, and some 6,000 indirect jobs in the area around Puerto Sandino, where President Daniel Ortega and Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez laid the cornerstone to the refinery last July (NT, July 27).
The refinery, the largest project in Nicaragua’s history, is expected to cost around $3.9 billion over five years, according to Chávez.
Contreras said that Venezuelan technicians will be training Nicaraguans over the coming months, but that once the project is up and running it will be managed 100% by Nicaraguans.
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