Page 12 - LatAmOil Week 19 2022

LatAmOil URUGUAY LatAmOil

ANCAP begins emergency LPG

imports to overcome shortages

URUGUAY’S national oil company (NOC) electricity supplies to the refinery. When power
ANCAP was due to begin receiving emergency was restored, he said, the plant’s catalytic crack-
shipments of LPG from Argentina by the end of ing unit could not be restarted properly and has
last week to compensate for supply disruptions had to be disassembled in line with protocol in
resulting from the labour protests and power order to determine the cause of failure.
cuts that affected operations at La Teja, its refin- “The refinery’s failure to operate under nor-
ery in Montevideo. mal conditions forces us to import fuel and, pos-
ANCAP president Alejandro Stipanicic sibly, if the cracking [unit] is not fixed, we will
rolled out the emergency LPG import plan last decide to import diesel [fuel],” he said.
week, saying that the company was committed He also noted that electricity supplies had
to avoiding major shortages of the “most critical failed shortly after ANCAP’s latest effort to solve
product” that La Teja produced. “[In] order to disputes with a labour group had collapsed.
bring peace of mind, ANCAP’s general man- “Unfortunately, the union delegation withdrew
agement is making every effort to overcome this before the meeting and immediately took meas-
incident,” he stated. ures that affected the normal operation of the
More specifically, he stated, ANCAP has refinery’s maintenance areas,” Stipanicic said.
arranged to order 34,000 cubic metres of LPG He did not describe those measures but said
from Argentina in the form of two marine car- they had prevented maintenance teams from
goes and 60 tanker truck-loads for more imme- working on the cracking unit between April 30
diate delivery. He indicated that the tanker and May 2. ™
trucks were scheduled to begin bringing the
fuel into Uruguay by the end of the week, with
the marine cargoes following on May 12, 13, 20
and 21.
Additionally, he indicated that the supply
disruptions might extend beyond LPG. ANCAP
will probably need to purchase refined gasoline
and diesel from other suppliers, as it cannot
meet its own needs, he said.
Stipanicic explained that La Teja was still
trying to recover from last week’s power fail-
ure, which occurred when a storm interrupted ANCAP produces LPG at its La Teja refinery in Montevideo (Photo: ANCAP)

GLOBAL
World Bank says 10 oil-producing states

account for 75% of all global gas flaring

PROGRESS on the global drive to reduce gas these – Russia, Iraq, Iran, the US, Venezuela,
flaring, the practice of burning off associated Algeria, and Nigeria – have remained in the top
gas during oil production, has stalled out over 10 consistently over the past 10 years.
the last decade, says the World Bank. A report The GGFR’s 2022 Global Gas Flaring Tracker
from the bank’s Global Gas Flaring Reduction Report shows that 144bn cubic metres of gas was
Partnership (GGFR) says gas flaring generated flared at upstream facilities last year. The prac-
nearly 400mn tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) tice led to the release of 361mn tonnes of carbon
equivalent emissions in 2021. dioxide, as well as 39mn tonnes of CO2 equiva-
It also notes that 10 oil-producing countries lent emissions in the form of methane and black
accounted for 75% of all gas flaring. Seven of carbon (soot). ™

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 19 12•May•2022