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re: Question about the quality of Venezuelan crude oil...
Posted on 1/5/26 at 5:14 pm to HenryParsons
Posted on 1/5/26 at 5:14 pm to HenryParsons
Gimme some sweet Texas tea any day
This post was edited on 1/5/26 at 5:17 pm
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Posted on 1/5/26 at 6:49 pm to AUFANATL
quote:
a while back I took a vacation to Aruba and there was a huge refinery on the island.
There is a valve displayed just as you walk in the main admin building. It has a swastika on the side. Hitler got about 25% of his fuel from this refinery for the war effort.
Posted on 1/5/26 at 6:58 pm to HenryParsons
Most of our gulf coast refineries are set up ideally for heavy sours
Posted on 1/5/26 at 7:19 pm to HenryParsons
Dumb question
Can refineries handle both the heavy crude and light crude or is it one or the other?
Can refineries handle both the heavy crude and light crude or is it one or the other?
Posted on 1/5/26 at 7:26 pm to HenryParsons
There was a giant one in St.Croix (American territory/protectorate), but the local USG always had their hand out and it was moth-balled about a decade ago.
Posted on 1/5/26 at 7:27 pm to Tarps99
quote:
Don’t they also blend heavy sour crudes with lighter crudes to aid in the refining process or to maximize energy output?
The Doba Crude is a blend. When a refinery is running over a half million bbls a day, many are running 8 or more different crudes.
Posted on 1/5/26 at 7:29 pm to SlidellCajun
quote:
Can refineries handle both the heavy crude and light crude or is it one or the other?
Some can. It's all about what they are designed for and what crude they want to position for.
It isn't exactly what type (heavy/light) but how much of each.
Posted on 1/5/26 at 7:35 pm to SlidellCajun
quote:
Can refineries handle both the heavy crude and light crude or is it one or the other?
Yes. You have to remember, lube stocks and chemicals make big money. Certain crudes are lube approved, some are not! It’s crazy the number of products made from crude. Many of the larger refinery docks have around 100 pipelines going to the docks.
Posted on 1/5/26 at 8:22 pm to LSUDad
Multiple considerations in answering this question:
- almost any refinery could theoretically run Venezuelan crude. Question is: can they do it economically
- what makes many USGC refineries advantaged are heavies processing complexity and sulfur capacity. They will be able to actually process the heavies vs having to sell resid into RSFO market, as an example (disadvantaged) vs a Coker deriving naphtha and diesel range products.
- as many know, the USGC were not built for lights but it was so cheap coming from Permian that many sites have built expansions and upgrades to enable.
- what is economic crude is also a function of logistics. A midwestern refinery won’t be able to get access to Venezuelan easily given they are land locked.
- lubes refineries are only a handful left in North America. Like maybe 6 meaningful, material volume sites.
- almost any refinery could theoretically run Venezuelan crude. Question is: can they do it economically
- what makes many USGC refineries advantaged are heavies processing complexity and sulfur capacity. They will be able to actually process the heavies vs having to sell resid into RSFO market, as an example (disadvantaged) vs a Coker deriving naphtha and diesel range products.
- as many know, the USGC were not built for lights but it was so cheap coming from Permian that many sites have built expansions and upgrades to enable.
- what is economic crude is also a function of logistics. A midwestern refinery won’t be able to get access to Venezuelan easily given they are land locked.
- lubes refineries are only a handful left in North America. Like maybe 6 meaningful, material volume sites.
This post was edited on 1/5/26 at 8:25 pm
Posted on 1/5/26 at 8:38 pm to Flapjacks
quote:
There was a giant one in St.Croix (American territory/protectorate), but the local USG always had their hand out and it was moth-balled about a decade ago
You’re talking about the Limetree Bay refinery? There was an attempt to restart the facility a few years ago…my old general manager left to help startup operations there.
The local help, was…lazy as frick.
Then they had an incident that sprayed oil on the neighborhood near the refinery…hasta la vista after that one.
Posted on 1/5/26 at 8:40 pm to 2 Jugs
quote:
There is a valve displayed just as you walk in the main admin building. It has a swastika on the side
There are a couple of those in the Exxon Baytown complex and Lyondell’s Houston Refinery they just decommissioned for no good reason.
This post was edited on 1/5/26 at 8:40 pm
Posted on 1/5/26 at 8:42 pm to offshoreangler
quote:
Lyondell’s Houston Refinery they just decommissioned for no good reason.
There was good reason. Place couldn't make money.
Posted on 1/5/26 at 8:51 pm to fightin tigers
Please…HRL made plenty of money…Lyondell had the place “for sale”’ nearly a decade.
Lyondell wants nothing to do with things that aren’t plastics or chemicals.
If it was such a drain on their bottom line they would have said yes when Motiva offered to buy it.
Lyondell wants nothing to do with things that aren’t plastics or chemicals.
If it was such a drain on their bottom line they would have said yes when Motiva offered to buy it.
Posted on 1/5/26 at 8:56 pm to offshoreangler
Probably worth more as scrap and a terminal than what they Motiva was allegedly going to pay. If there was even an offer.
The Saudis toured and put offers on every refinery if you ask the right people.
The Saudis toured and put offers on every refinery if you ask the right people.
Posted on 1/5/26 at 10:58 pm to Cash
As Hess that refinery was built as the largest refinery in the world and refined crude from the Middle East. PDVSA bought 50% share to form Hovensa so it was converted to take heavy crude from Venezuela. One of the crude untis was turned into a thermal cracking unit, OLD technology. I looked into it for a European client with ME money backing and it's in really crappy shape. Better suited as scrap metal, IMO.
Posted on 1/5/26 at 11:12 pm to HenryParsons
A number of Gulf Coast refineries reconfigured to refine heavy and very heavy crude starting in the early 1980's. A German company, Otto Wolff, developed new markets for petroleum coke in Europe making petcoke a profit center. What was a by product to squeeze the last drop of gasoline and diesel out of the bottom of the barrel with a coker suddenly jumped up in price dramatically. Also, freight was cheap being a 10 day round trip voyage so the same tankers went back and forth in around 400,000 bbl shipments.
More crude throughput the heavier a crude oil is through a refinery.
Lyondell's Houston Refining was configured to take 100% very heavy crude and it even had a petcoke fueled cogen unit installed in the late 1980's which required nickel alloy steel due it burns much hotter than coal. That refinery shutdown last year due lack of proper crude oil feedstock.
In 2003, white collar workers went on a 6 month strike to protest how Chavez wouldn't allow money for proper maintenance for PDVSA in Venezuela. 11 very major refineries in TX, LA and MS scrabbled to find at least heavy crude or at least partially shutdown. They were able to get PEMEX to produce enough Mayan heavy crude to stay in operation over that period of time.
As a result of the 2003 strike, oil companies began looking at Canadian heavy crude as a replacement for unreliable Venezuela.
BTW, Chavez replaced all of those striking engineers and management 3:1 with Chavez supporters who didn't know the difference between a pump from a valve or a drilling rig and a gin pole truck. They were there to draw paychecks
In short anyone who says its bad crude oil doesn't know anything about refining and refined products.
More crude throughput the heavier a crude oil is through a refinery.
Lyondell's Houston Refining was configured to take 100% very heavy crude and it even had a petcoke fueled cogen unit installed in the late 1980's which required nickel alloy steel due it burns much hotter than coal. That refinery shutdown last year due lack of proper crude oil feedstock.
In 2003, white collar workers went on a 6 month strike to protest how Chavez wouldn't allow money for proper maintenance for PDVSA in Venezuela. 11 very major refineries in TX, LA and MS scrabbled to find at least heavy crude or at least partially shutdown. They were able to get PEMEX to produce enough Mayan heavy crude to stay in operation over that period of time.
As a result of the 2003 strike, oil companies began looking at Canadian heavy crude as a replacement for unreliable Venezuela.
BTW, Chavez replaced all of those striking engineers and management 3:1 with Chavez supporters who didn't know the difference between a pump from a valve or a drilling rig and a gin pole truck. They were there to draw paychecks
In short anyone who says its bad crude oil doesn't know anything about refining and refined products.
Posted on 1/5/26 at 11:19 pm to Oilfieldbiology
quote:
I believe anywhere with a cracking unit and a comer can handle some of it.
For starters the crude unit needs to be 347 Stainless steel tubes in heat exchangers and the crude column. After that it's pretty much the same. There also needs to be a vacuum unit which is usually a sub part of the crude unit.
There was a small refinery in Lake Charles that had shutdown then purchase just to take Venezuelan and run it only through a vacuum unit for the asphalt. It sold the lighter ends to by barge to any refinery that would take it.
Posted on 1/5/26 at 11:25 pm to ColoradoAg03
quote:
Most of our refineries were built to process their heavy sour crude.
Only most of the major ones on the Gulf Coast PLUS the Hunt refinery in Tuscalousa which was processing local heavy crude already.
The refineries in CA all process heavy crude as the local crude is classed as heavy high sulfur around 18 API gravity and 3.5% sulfur, but Canadian blended (syncrude and produced crude blend) is about ideal for them.
All refineries have a secret crude oil cocktail of sources they blend which maximizes refinery efficiency and profits.
The heavier the crude the less heat is required to distill it in the crude unit. I've been through that with a Marathon refinery I have for sale.
Posted on 1/6/26 at 6:34 am to CitizenK
quote:
In short anyone who says its bad crude oil doesn't know anything about refining and refined products
If it isn't shite crude why don't they charge a lot more for it? Does Venezuela just like giving away high quality crude for the cheapest price possible?
Posted on 1/6/26 at 8:17 am to CitizenK
quote:
There was a small refinery in Lake Charles that had shutdown then purchase just to take Venezuelan and run it only through a vacuum unit for the asphalt. It sold the lighter ends to by barge to any refinery that would take it.
Calcasieu Refining? If so it's back up and running.
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