Venezuela says plans 4-month oil refinery work

PUNTO FIJO, Venezuela, July 11 (Reuters) - Venezuela will carry out four months of maintenance and expansion work starting in August on the cat cracker at its 640,000-barrels-per-day Amuay oil refinery, an official said on Friday.

State oil company PDVSA considers the planned work a "major" operation, a senior refining official, Jesus Luongo, told reporters on the sidelines of a Colombian-Venezuelan meeting on energy cooperation in Punto Fijo in western Venezuela.

Amuay and the neighboring 300,000-bpd Cardon refinery together form the giant Paraguana refining complex.

Over the last few years, stoppages due to incidents such as power outages and maintenance programs have lowered the OPEC nation's output from its refineries, industry analysts say. (Reporting by Fabian Andres Cambero; Writing by Saul Hudson; Editing by Braden Reddall)