Venezuela's Lagoven SA has begun a $1.1 billion, 10 year program of upgrades and expansions at its 635,000 b/d capacity Amuay refinery on Venezuela's northwestern coast.
The program is in line with parent Petroleos de Venezuela SA's (Pdvsa) 1996-2005 business plan that seeks to add 600,000 b/d to its worldwide refining capacity (OGJ, Jan. 15, p. 24). Included, in addition to the Amuay projects, are plans to upgrade and expand units at three other Pdvsa refineries in Venezuela and Curacao at a cost of $1.3 billion.
Projects, output
Amuay projects scheduled the next 10 years are a hydrotreater for heavy gas oil, catalytic fractionating unit for naphtha, a tertiary amyl methyl ether (TAME) plant, alkylation capacity expansions, a delayed coker expansion, and two more hydrocrackers to step up production of jet fuel and gas oil.
Among the first to go on stream will be the $54 million naphtha cat fractionator and the $53 million TAME unit. They are slated for start-up in second quarter 1997.
About 70% of Amuay's 200 products is exported, mostly to the U.S., with the rest sold domestically.
The refinery, among the world's two or three biggest, produces leaded, unleaded, and reformulated gasoline (RFG), jet fuel, diesel fuel, heating oil, a wide range of lubricants, asphalt, solvents, residual fuel, sulfur, fuel grade coke, and industrial flexicoke.
In 1995, Amuay exported about 29,000 b/d of RFG to the U.S., generating about $165 million in additional revenue for Lagoven.
The refinery's low operating cost has been a key to a highly profitable, competitive operation. Amuay generated about $365 million in revenue for Lagoven in 1995.
Amuay throughput last year averaged 471,000 b/d, up 41,000 b/d from 1994. With its continuous upgrading push, the refinery was able to process about 100,000 b/d of heavy crude last year.
Most Amuay crude feedstock arrives through two 235 km pipelines from Lake Maracaibo, with a growing volume of light and medium crude arriving via tanker from Lagoven's El Furrial oil fields in eastern Venezuela.
Amuay has storage capacity of 4.2 million bbl of crude, 21.6 million bbl of refined products, and 21.2 million bbl of residual fuel. Its port facilities can accommodate 65 tankers/month.
Background
Amuay refinery started up in January 1950 with an initial processing capacity of 60,000 b/d.
Since then, refining patterns and crude slates have changed dramatically. During 1950-69, the refinery focused on primary distillation. At that time, about 62% of Amuay's yield was residual fuel, 21% distillates, 13% naphtha, and 4% asphalt.
During 1970-81, the focus shifted to hydrodesulfurization.
Processing patterns changed again in 1982-93, as Amuay moved to medium and deep conversion processes to meet the market's more demanding environmental standards.
Today, Amuay's products output breaks out as 34% gasoline and naphtha, 41% distillates, 10% residual fuel, 9% jet fuel, and 6% asphalt.
Another major shift in processing patterns is under way at the refinery that will allow Amuay to further cut production of high sulfur residual fuel and increase output of cleaner gasoline and diesel grades that fetch significantly higher prices on the market.
Amuay accounts for more than half of Venezuela's processing capacity of 1.246 million b/d. Pdvsa wants to boost that total by 200,000 b/d by 2000.
Outside Venezuela, Pdvsa has about 1.626 million b/d of refining capacity at wholly or partly owned refineries in the U.S. and Europe.
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