Article

2019-02-05 Caribbean-Latin America

Armada of Tankers with Venezuelan Oil Forms in U.S. Gulf

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Posted by Alaska Paul 2019-02-05 13:05|| || Front Page|| [11 views ] Top
File under: Commies

#1 i don't understand why we are importing oil when we are the biggest exporter now. Am I the only person this does not make sense too?

Posted by chris 2019-02-05 13:59|| 2019-02-05 13:59|| Front Page Top

#2 We do refine crude oil shipped in from other places, chris.

Posted by Mullah Richard 2019-02-05 14:17|| 2019-02-05 14:17|| Front Page Top

#3 I would think that the type of crude required by certain US refineries at the present is part of the situation, chris. It is not easy to switch to different sources because of process variables.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2019-02-05 14:26|| 2019-02-05 14:26|| Front Page Top

#4 Chris,

We are the major refiner of the crap crude Venezuela has. Only a couple other countries can, but not at our volume. In the 70s the refinery companies bet on oil getting scarcer and poured money into being able to refine heavy crude.

With the shale boom, the refiners have started to convert some heavy refinery locations to sweet crude. The amazing thing is, the US actually produces so much good shale oil, which is ridiculously easy to refine, that our refineries can't keep up and we have to export a lot of it.

So that is your basic answer. We can refine the heavy crude, can't refine all our shale crude so we import. That will change in the next decade and Venezuela, whatever their government situation, will be faced with a bunch of worthless crude that no one wants.

Posted by DarthVader 2019-02-05 14:28|| 2019-02-05 14:28|| Front Page Top

#5 Each refinery is set up to handle a specific kind of crude oil, oil density and sulfur content are two big factors. If your refinery is set up for Venezuelan heavy sour you can't just plug in some Gulf Coast light sweet, for instance. Transportation costs also matter - it may make better sense to bring Venezuelan crude a short tanker trip to Lake Charles and route West Texas oil through a pipeline to a California refinery and tanker Alaskan crude to Korea. Oil companies have whole departments to figure out the best total package, and legal departments to see if it is allowed.

Posted by Glenmore 2019-02-05 14:31|| 2019-02-05 14:31|| Front Page Top

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