[seahorse]

Kevo,

Some of those posts and discussions probably came from the Venezuela thread found here:

Venezuela

In fact, I'm going to link your thread to that thread.

[pana_burda]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KevO', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')HOUSTON, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Citgo Petroleum Corp cut more than 500 contract maintenance workers in late December at its Louisiana refinery as part of a program to increase returns to corporate parent Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA, according to sources familiar with the company's refinery operations.

Between 500 and 700 contractors were let go at the 430,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Lake Charles plant, which the U.S. government lists as the nation's third largest, the sources said. A Citgo spokesman declined to discuss operations at the Lake Charles refinery.

[Ferretlover]

FYI:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Fire at Citgo refinery injures one By Elvia Aguilar (Contact)
Originally published 08:03 p.m., July 19, 2009, Updated 03:11 a.m., July 20, 2009:
CORPUS CHRISTI — A fire Sunday morning at Citgo East Refinery injured one employee.
The man, whose name and age weren’t released, was taken to a local hospital and then to a San Antonio hospital for his burns, according to Citgo. His condition was not available late Sunday.
Citgo spokesman Larry Elizondo said the fire started about 8:30 a.m. in a portion of the alkylation unit of the east plant. Alkylation is a key aspect of refining petroleum.
Fire control water cannons covered the unit with a curtain of water to keep the fire confined to that area, Elizondo said. It was unclear what started the fire. …
The Houston-based, Venezuela-owned company employs about 500 people in Corpus Christi.

[Ferretlover]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Citgo Delays Restart Of Texas Refinery Unit
By Susan Daker, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES:
HOUSTON (Dow Jones)--Citgo Petroleum Corp. has delayed restarting a unit that caused a near-fatal explosion at the company's Texas refinery after union officials raised concern for the safety of workers and nearby residents, according to sources close to the plant's operation.
The restart date for the alkylation unit has been postponed at least two weeks until the end of October as more repairs are being made at the Corpus Christi plant, the sources said. [b]…[/b…]
On July 19, the alkylation unit released a chemical that caused an explosion and a fire that lasted for several days.
About 4,000* pounds of hydrofluoric acid, a dangerous chemical, were released, according to the union. Nearby residents have complained about feeling sick after the explosion.
Citgo has said that readings for the chemical at the edge of the plant, close to surrounding residential neighborhoods, were 0 parts per million.
The refinery can process up to 163,000 barrels of crude oil a day. Citgo is the U.S. refining arm of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, or PdVSA

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Dec 23 Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA said on Friday it has used 49.9 percent of its shares in U.S. subsidiary Citgo as collateral for loan financing, two months after having used the other 50.1 percent as collateral in a bond operation.

Finance industry publication REDD this week reported that the shares had been pledged as collateral for a $1.5 billion loan from Russian oil firm Rosneft, citing a source and a filing in the state of Delaware.

PDVSA is struggling under low oil prices and an unraveling socialist economy, spurring investor concerns that it may not be able to meet heavy bond payments. President Nicolas Maduro dismisses default talk as a campaign against him.







"Just as PDVSA in the month of October used 50.1 percent of Citgo for the bond swap operation, it has used the remaining 49.9 percent for new financing," the company said in a statement, without detailing the financing agreement.

Reuters was unable to immediately obtain comment from Rosneft.

Citgo owns three refineries and a network of terminals and pipelines in the United States.

Venezuelan opposition leaders have pounced on the Citgo decision as evidence that Maduro's government is drawing down state assets to finance a collapsing economic system. PDVSA in its statement on Friday said the media and the opposition were distorting the issue as part of a campaign against it.

PDVSA in October completed a $2.8 billion bond swap that helped push heavy 2017 payment obligations into 2020. The operation had considerably lower participation than had been originally anticipated, but was broadly seen by investors as improving the firm's cash flow. (Reporting by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Leslie Adler)

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '&')quot;PDVSA is struggling under low oil prices and an unraveling socialist economy, spurring investor concerns that it may not be able to meet heavy bond payments. President Nicolas Maduro dismisses default talk as a campaign against him."

It's hard to know what is going on regarding peak-oil production in Venezuela. (Until recently I was able to research oil production in oildrum.com, even though they stopped adding new material. Now that is over.)

Too much propaganda re Venezuela's oil business to know the truth. The country passed peak decades ago. Unlike in the US there are no abundant light oil or NGL's supplies to upgrade the extra heavy stuff, the SA consumer simply can not afford the cost to produce Orinoco extra heavy. So the reserves numbers are basically b@llsh@t. As far as I can tell the bulk of production comes from four legacy fields: the Petrozuata, Cerro Negro, Sincor, and Hamaca projects are all in decline.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'B')unker ship-oil fuel is essentially free, its a residual oil left over after gasoline, diesel and other light hydrocarbons are extracted from crude oil during the refining. Orimulsion cost money to produce and would have to compete with free. I don't see how sales could ever be profitable on a significant scale, to support its own production.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'I') said bunker fuel is essentially free, a lot cheaper than orimulsion and exists everywhere oil is distilled. No need to ship it far. No market for orimulsion. If there was it would have taken off when oil was $100/barrel. It won't now.

Sure there are a hundred reasons why Venezuela (or any post-peak oil region) is suffering. You can call it Dutch Disease, I just call it post-colonialism. 3rd-world countries set up by the European to be resource whores. We took and never returned anything for those people. Venezuela doesn't have a 1st world infrastructure, even if their oil-production system is first class.

The country has few modern highways, probably little in the way sophisticated electrical generation/transmission, crappy 3rd world water and sewage. And the wealthy Northerners whine that "we are not getting oil we deserve". f#cking disgusting

[ROCKMAN]

T - And that's part of the reason ExxonMobil and Chevron are spending a combined total of $32 BILLION to revamp their refineries in my little town just east of Houston. The manpower addition is huge: there's an empty big box store in a nearby mall. I see 500 to 1,000 vehicles in the parking lot when I go to the movies: continuous training school for new hands. And that's just one training center. Real estate prices booming and new residential/commercial construction going on all around me.

This ain't Detroit.

[Synapsid]

pstarr, Tanada:

There is the new factor that the IMO now requires that by January 1 2020 all shipping use fuels with a sulfur content no greater than 0.5%. I don't know how that would figure into your discussion, though.

[ROCKMAN]

Syn - "... IMO now requires that by January 1 2020 all shipping use fuels with a sulfur content no greater than 0.5%.". Requires who? A ship hauling coal from Australia to Japan? A tanker sailing into any EU port? A tanker in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean that's heading to an EU port? They do understand ships have multiple fuel bunkers, don't they? Are they going to ban any ship that burns they higher S fuel anywhere else in the world potentially cutting the shipping market to EU countries and potentially raising rates?

Same ole problem with "bumper sticker" statements...as usual way to little details.

[Synapsid]

ROCKMAN,

The IMO is the regulatory body for international shipping. The cap is 0.5% sulfur for all ships using fuel oil.

Scrubbers can be used to reach the same level of emission of sulfur oxides, which are what the cap is aimed at. I guess that means fuel oil with sulfur level higher than 0.5% can be burned if the ship has the scrubber capacity to offset the resulting sulfur oxides.

This isn't new; the first announcement was in 2008. The date just announced (1 January 2020) follows on a study of likely availability of sufficient refining capacity to allow the cap, and that study's results were announced this year.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('CBS', 'P')HILADELPHIA (CBS) — Texas-based “CITGO” has agreed to pay New Jersey a $450,000 fine over alleged violations of the Motor Fuel Act, Consumer Fraud Act, and advertising regulations.

The company was accused of selling unbranded and off-brand fuel at more than a dozen gas stations across the Garden State.

CITGO will also implement a compliance program to ensure gas station retailers are selling the right fuel that drivers have paid for.

[ROCKMAN]

Not like Venezuela didn't have enough problems already: some ports won't allow entry to tankers carrying Venezuelan oil:

"In the scorching heat of the Caribbean Sea, workers in scuba suits scrub crude oil by hand from the hull of the Caspian Galaxy, a tanker so filthy it can't set sail in international waters. The vessel is among many that are constantly contaminated at two major export terminals where they load crude from Venezuela's state-run oil company, PDVSA. The water here has an oily sheen from leaks in the rusty pipelines under the surface. That means the tankers have to be cleaned before traveling to many foreign ports, which won't admit crude-stained ships for fear of environmental damage to their harbors, port facilities or other vessels.

The tankers sidelined for cleaning provide a vivid example of the firm's downward spiral: Lacking the cash to properly maintain ships, refineries and production operations - or to pay business partners on time - PDVSA can't boost exports, which is its only option for raising more cash.

The lagging exports crimp the flow of cash back to the country's crippled socialist economy, as citizens struggle daily amid soaring inflation and shortages of food and medicine. Because Venezuela relies on oil for more than 90 percent of export revenues, the problems of its state-run oil company pose a national crisis. Venezuela's crude exports declined 8 percent to 1.69 million bopd in the first quarter versus the same period in 2016.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'N')ot like Venezuela didn't have enough problems already: some ports won't allow entry to tankers carrying Venezuelan oil:

"In the scorching heat of the Caribbean Sea, workers in scuba suits scrub crude oil by hand from the hull of the Caspian Galaxy, a tanker so filthy it can't set sail in international waters. The vessel is among many that are constantly contaminated at two major export terminals where they load crude from Venezuela's state-run oil company, PDVSA. The water here has an oily sheen from leaks in the rusty pipelines under the surface. That means the tankers have to be cleaned before traveling to many foreign ports, which won't admit crude-stained ships for fear of environmental damage to their harbors, port facilities or other vessels.

The tankers sidelined for cleaning provide a vivid example of the firm's downward spiral: Lacking the cash to properly maintain ships, refineries and production operations - or to pay business partners on time - PDVSA can't boost exports, which is its only option for raising more cash.

The lagging exports crimp the flow of cash back to the country's crippled socialist economy, as citizens struggle daily amid soaring inflation and shortages of food and medicine. Because Venezuela relies on oil for more than 90 percent of export revenues, the problems of its state-run oil company pose a national crisis. Venezuela's crude exports declined 8 percent to 1.69 million bopd in the first quarter versus the same period in 2016.