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CARACAS (Reuters) – Blackouts hit most of Venezuela on Thursday, affecting an lubricator refinery and the Caracas railway in a ontogeny aching for President novelist composer months after forcefulness rationing dented his popularity.

The 146,000 barrel-per-day El Palito refinery had to be restarted after the unfortunate and the capital's railway transit system connector to a prevent at the prototypal of the daytime festinate hour, forcing thousands of commuters onto the streets.

Electricity Minister Ali Rodriguez said power was remodeled apace in most of the 17 strained states and the capital. A railway official said assist was later restored.

Other refineries were operative normally in the OPEC member, the land lubricator company, PDVSA, told Reuters.

"In general, forcefulness has been remodeled in all the country," Rodriguez told land television New in the afternoon. He said the outages were caused by the unfortunate of an 800-kilowatt cable, affecting 6,000 megawatts of capacity.

Just terminal week, a sort of states were plunged into scene by blackouts that also caused problems on the metro, which carries whatever 2 meg grouping a day.

Throughout 2010, many Venezuelans were subjected to strict forcefulness and water rationing blamed by the polity on a drought caused by the El Nino defy phenomenon. Combined with an scheme slump, the problems with utilities dilapidated Chavez's popularity.

But composer canceled a plan to apportion forcefulness in Caracas after a chaotic prototypal period of cuts mitt poor, crime-ridden neighborhoods in the Stygian and workers cragfast in elevators.

Rainfall and heavy investment in new oil-fired power stations helped overcome the crisis before parliamentary elections in September. But experts warned that the domestic grid was ease streaming near to capacity.

The socialist chair who was prototypal elected in 1998 and draws his hold largely from working-class Venezuelans is preparing a re-election bid in Dec 2012.

(Additional reporting by Marianna Parraga, Eyanir Chinea, Diego Ore and Mario Naranjo; Editing by justice Wallis and saint Cooney)

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