Page 6 - LatAmOil Week 09 2020
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LatAmOil DOMINICAN REPUBLIC LatAmOil
Dominican Republic’s only refinery begins exporting IMO-compliant fuel oil
THE Dominican Republic’s only oil refinery has begun exporting very low sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) that complies with IMO 2020, the new emissions standard for marine fuel that took effect at the beginning of the year.
In a statement, Refinería Dominicana de Petróleo PDV SA (known as Refidomsa) said that its 34,000 barrel per day (bpd) plant in Haina had dispatched its first shipments of IMO-compliant fuel late last month. Specifically, it said that the plant had loaded two tankers with 50,000 barrels of VLSFO each. Vitol, the Swiss- based commodities trading giant, is slated to deliver the fuel to buyers in North America, it added.
Félix Jiménez, the president of Refidomsa’s board of directors, said that the refinery had begun turning out IMO-compliant marine fuels after developing a process for researching crude oil in order to turn out petroleum products that were higher in quality and friendlier to the envi- ronment. He did not provide a full description of this process technology, but he did say that the recent changes in marine fuel emissions stand- ards represented “a new business opportunity.”
Jimenez also said that his company intended to continue exporting VLSFO regularly. The debut shipments to Vitol show that Refidomsa is capable of exporting at least 100,000 barrels of IMO-compliant marine fuels every month, he added. Last year, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) introduced a standard cap- ping sulphur content at 0.5%, effective January 1, 2020.
ARUBA
Aruba, PdVSA subsidiary strike deal on transfer of San Nicolas refinery
The refinery includes PdVSA’s subsidiary PDV Holding among its shareholders. PDV Holding owns 49% of Refidomsa, and the government of the Dominican Republic has the other 51%. The latter party transferred the minority stake to PDV Holding in 2009, in a bid to resolve the refinery’s debts for past deliveries of crude oil to PdVSA. Dominican authorities have been looking for a way to push the Vene- zuelan company out of the venture since at least 2017.
The Haina plant is capable of turning out around 6,000 bpd of fuel oil.
The refinery dispatched its first cargoes of VLSFO last month (Photo: Refidomsa)
THE government of Aruba is one step closer to terminating its agreement with an affiliate of Venezuela’s national oil company (NOC) PdVSA on the resumption of operations at the island’s only oil-processing plant.
In late February, state-owned Refineria di Aruba (RDA) said it had struck a deal with Citgo Aruba Holding (CAH), a company con- trolled by PdVSA’s subsidiary PDV Holding, on
transferring the right to operate the San Nicolas refinery. It reported that the parties had come to terms amicably and said that RDA and another government-run company, Energy Terminal of Aruba (TDEA), would temporarily assume control of the transshipment terminal associated with the facility.
Additionally, it stressed that the deal would
not disrupt fuel supplies in Aruba.
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 09 05•March•2020
