MOSCOW (MRC) -- Venezuela’s Petropiar facility, a joint venture between state oil company PDVSA and Chevron Corp, is once again operating this month as a crude upgrader after several months working as a less complex blending facility, according to a document seen by Reuters and a source with knowledge of the matter.
The facility will once again produce Hamaca-grade synthetic crude for export at the plant, according to the document. Petropiar stopped producing Hamaca last year and had been making heavier Merey crude, mostly for the Asian market, since July.
Neither PDVSA nor Chevron immediately responded to requests for comment.
Petropiar once made up to 210,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) of Hamaca out of tar-like oil from the OPEC nation’s Orinoco belt, one of the world’s largest oil reserves. The extra-heavy crude must be upgraded or blended with lighter grades at facilities near the Jose terminal before being exported.
But PDVSA struggled to find markets for that grade after the United States, previously Venezuela’s largest customer, slapped sanctions on the company last year as part of Washington’s push to oust socialist President Nicolas Maduro, who has overseen a dramatic economic collapse along with a freefall in crude output.
It was not immediately clear if PDVSA had a client lined up for the Hamaca crude.
We remind that in March 2018, Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LP successfully introduced feedstock and commenced operations of a new ethane cracker at its Cedar Bayou facility in Baytown, Texas. At peak production, the unit will produce 1.5 million metric tons/3.3 billion lbs. per year.
As MRC wrote before, US-based Phillips 66 remains open to developing another ethane cracker for its Chevron Phillips Chemical (CP Chem) joint venture, the refiner's CEO said in March 2018.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,904,410 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments increased from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,161,830 tonnes in January-November 2019, up by 7% year on year. Deliveries of all grades of propylene polymers increased, with the homopolymer PP segment accounting for the largest increase.
Headquartered in San Ramon, California, Chevron Corporation is the the second-largest integrated energy company in the United States and among the largest corporations in the world. Chevron is involved in upstream activities including exploration and production, downstream activities including refining, marketing and transportation, and advanced energy technology. Chevron is also invested in power generation and gasification processes.
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