Page 8 - LatAmOil Week 33 2022

LatAmOil US VIRGIN ISL ANDS LatAmOil

Firefighters are applying water to the flames 24 the very communities it claims to provide jobs
hours a day, collecting temperature data fre- for and serve,” he remarked. “I don’t feel any
quently inside the coke dome and keeping US pressure to let any refinery or any facility cheat
and local authorities updated, according to the at the expense of the communities they are sup-
company. posed to serve.”
PHRT also explained that the firefighting The Limetree Bay refinery, formerly known
campaign was moving slowly because of the as Hovensa, was built in the 1960s with an ini-
circumstances of the incident. “Heavy equip- tial capacity of 525,000 bpd and was gradually
ment is being utilised to move the petroleum expanded to around 645,000 bpd. It was run by a
coke material inside the dome so the water can joint venture between Hess Corp. (US) and Ven-
reach below the surface of the pile to safely sup- ezuela’s national oil company (NOC) PdVSA,
press the smouldering coke,” it said. “To keep all with capacity falling to 500,000 bpd by 2010.
employees safe, the process must be done at a The joint venture shut the facility down in
slow, controlled pace.” 2012 and then declared bankruptcy in 2015
The company did not say when it expected before agreeing to sell it to Limetree Bay Ven-
the blaze to be extinguished. PHRT had said last tures in 2016. That company’s subsidiary Lime-
month that it was aiming to bring the refinery tree Bay Refining intended to bring 200,000 bpd
back into service in the second quarter of 2023 of processing capacity back online by Decem-
at an initial capacity of 180,000 barrels per day ber 2019 but could not meet the deadline. It ran
(bpd). into additional delays in 2020 as a result of the
According to Argus, the pile of petcoke was coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and then
left at the plant by its previous owner – namely, resumed operations in early 2021. After the
Limetree Bay Ventures, the firm formed by EIG EPA-ordered shutdown, however, it filed for
Global Energy Partners and ArcLight Capital bankruptcy. ™
Partners of the US to take over the refinery.
Limetree Bay Ventures shut the facility down in
May 2021 under orders from the US Environ-
mental Protection Agency (EPA), following sev-
eral incidents in which problems with a coking
unit caused toxic liquids to rain down on nearby
neighbourhoods.
Charles Chambers, the CEO of PHRT, has
pledged to restart to refinery “in a safe and
environmentally conscious way.” He has also
suggested that the facility – which has an orig-
inal design capacity of some 525,000 bpd, even
though Limetree Bay Ventures had only tried
to bring 200,000 bpd of capacity back on line –
could produce petroleum for delivery to the US
mainland in quantities that could help ease tight
supply conditions there.
However, his company is likely to face an
uphill climb. EPA administrator Michael Regan
indicated last month that he did not see the
plant’s restart as a matter of great urgency. “That
refinery’s record speaks for itself, raining oil on The refinery has remained idle since May 2021 (Photo: Limetree Bay Ventures)

GUYANA
ExxonMobil sees tie-backs as an option for

bringing more Stabroek oilfields on stream

MIKE Ryan, production manager at ExxonMo- development operations.
bil Guyana, has said that his company is giving Ryan was quoted by OilNOW.gy as saying
serious consideration to proposals for using on August 15 that ExxonMobil Guyana’s prior-
subsea tie-backs to link new oil discoveries at ity was optimum development of its resources
the Stabroek offshore block to existing produc- and that tie-backs were among the options the
tion facilities in order to streamline upstream company might pursue.

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 33 17•August•2022