Page 8 - LatAmOil Week 22 2021

LatAmOil VENEZUEL A LatAmOil

Chevron responded positively to OFAC’s after a controversial election marked by wide-
announcement. Ray Fohr, a spokesman for spread reports that President Nicolas Maduro
the company, told Reuters that the company had resorted to fraud to secure another term in
intended “to comply with applicable laws and office.
regulations” governing its activities in Vene- The sanctions regime was designed to put
zuela. He also commented that Chevron had pressure on Maduro to step down and cede
been “a constructive presence in the country, power to opposition leader Juan Guaido. Thus
supporting social investment and humanitarian far, it has not yielded the desired results. Never-
programmes.” theless, the current US presidential administra-
The previous US presidential administra- tion, led by Joe Biden, has kept the sanctions in
tion, led by Donald Trump, imposed severe place, while signalling that it may be willing to
restrictions on Venezuela and its national oil lift certain barriers to fuel delivery for the pur-
company (NOC) PdVSA in early 2019. It did so pose of humanitarian relief. ™

PdVSA may repurpose two crude oil

upgraders to boost gasoline production

VENEZUELA’S national oil company (NOC) regime.
PdVSA is reportedly looking into the possi- As such, the officials said, the repurposing
bility of repurposing some of the country’s of the upgraders will offer the country a new
heavy crude oil upgraders to facilitate gasoline means of producing gasoline, which has been in
production. short supply. These facilities are far more capa-
According to sources with knowledge of the ble of turning out heavy naphtha than PdVSA’s
matter and government documents viewed by plants, since they were operated with the help
Bloomberg, PdVSA is considering this option of foreign partners until relatively recently, the
for upgrader plants owned by Petropiar, a joint officials said.
venture between the NOC and Chevron (US), Additionally, they noted, the Petropiar and
and Petrocedeno, another joint venture between Petrocedeno upgraders were already producing
the NOC, Equinor (Norway) and TotalEnergies small volumes of naphtha in the process of mak-
(France), formerly known as Total. Both of these ing synthcrude. As such, the project will simply
facilities were built to process heavy crude by allow them to raise output to 30,000 barrels per
stripping away sulphur compounds and other day (bpd) of naphtha. PdVSA may build a pipe-
impurities in preparation for being blended line with the help of local contractors to trans-
with water into synthetic crude oil, also known port these volumes to the Cardon and Puerto
as synthcrude. La Cruz refineries, Bloomberg’s sources said. ™
The news agency did not say how much
the repurposing initiative might cost or when
PdVSA might make a decision. Its sources
stated, though, that the NOC intended to hire
local contractors for the project rather than
solicit bids from foreign service providers in
light of US sanctions policy, which is designed
to penalise companies that invest in Venezuela’s
oil sector. They also claimed that the shift would
not prevent the upgraders from continuing to
turn out synthcrude.
In the documents viewed by Bloomberg,
Venezuelan officials said that the initiative
would give PdVSA a way to produce larger
quantities of heavy naphtha, a feedstock that its
refineries could use to turn out gasoline. Many
oil-processing plants make heavy naphtha as an
intermediate product and then use it to produce
gasoline, but Venezuelan refineries are no longer
capable of doing so because PdVSA has not been
able to repair broken equipment for the past few
years. Likewise, the NOC is unable to import
heavy naphtha because of the US sanctions PdVSA may repurpose Petrocedenco’s heavy crude upgrader (Image: PdVSA)

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 22 03•June•2021