Fuel-polluted algae found near Venezuela refinery

Algae contaminated with hydrocarbons appeared in the sea close to Venezuela's Amuay refinery, state oil company PDVSA said on Sunday. PDVSA said an emergency team cleaned the area 200 meters off the coast on Saturday afternoon with the help of local residents. The company did not specify the size of the affected area. It said it was investigating the source of the contamination. The 640,000-barrel-per-day Amuay has suffered repeated outages this year. Venezuela's petroleum product exports to the United States, traditionally its principal client, fell nearly 30 percent during the first quarter of 2008 amid persistent refinery outages and accidents.