Further, heavy crude oils do not produce as much gasoline or fuel oil as light crude oil.
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The Saudis had 1.5 million bpd of spare production capacity--oil spigots on standby--and it was less desirable heavy crude.
It is thus much more expensive to develop and utilize heavy crude fields.
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U.S. Gulf Coast refineries are specifically configured to handle Venezuelan heavy crude varieties.
Further the number of gallons of gasoline produced per barrel heavy crude oil is lower than for light crude oils.
Light sweet crude is depleting quickly, and now the industry is going after heavy crude and tar sands and thermally enhanced oil.
By then many refiners will have expanded and upgraded to take not only heavy crude but also synthetic crude from Canada's oil sands.
So producing more crude oil, if it is heavy crude oil, will not result automatically in more gasoline or other high value end products.
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Right now, biodiesel is a growing industry but hasn't made an appreciable dent on the global dependence on heavy crude oil, from which diesel fuel is processed.
The solar steam is being injected into wells to make it easier to extract heavy crude from a 120-year-old oil field in the Central Valley town of Coalinga.
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Kloza said much of the expansion would come along the Gulf of Mexico and in the Midwest, an ideal spot to process heavy crude from Canada's emerging oil sand deposits.
In addition to its massive proved reserves, it has an estimated 260 billion barrels of heavy crude--roughly equal to Saudi reserves--in its Orinoco Belt stretching across the center of the nation.
The company is spending billions and hiring thousands to upgrade its remaining "northern tier" refineries in Indiana, Ohio and Washington state to handle a gush of heavy crude from Canada's tar sands.
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In 2008 it signed a deal with PdVSA to jointly study a block in the Orinoco heavy crude belt, which the government in Caracas says holds the largest hydrocarbon reserves in the world.
In addition to its massive proved reserves, it has an estimated 260 billion barrels of heavy crude--roughly equal to the Saudi reserves--in the Orinoco Belt that stretches across the center of the nation.
James Gibbs, Frontier's chief, has no sympathy for Canadian producers that feel they're getting ripped off on the heavy crude his company buys, 50, 000 barrels a day (just under a third of its total petroleum consumption).
Ecuador exports a heavy sour crude called Napo and a medium-heavy, medium-sour crude called Oriente that is produced in the northeast of the country.
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In spite of cleaning car tyres and workers boots, the heavy black crude made its way into the streets, shops and homes.
Refiners churn out the same end products (gasoline, heating oil, distillates, etc.) using either feedstock, but not all refiners have the equipment to process heavy sour crude.
But, even if China had heavy-crude refining capacity--which it doesn't--it wouldn't make economic sense to trade the four-day boat trip to Houston for a 40-day ride across the Pacific.
Former PDVSA executives recognized that the U.S. was their primary market, and it didn't make any sense to allow foreign investors to reap the rewards from investing in heavy-crude refining capacity.
S. A division of Petroleos de Venezuela, its refining arm Citgo owns three plants on the Gulf Coast, including Lake Charles, one of the biggest in the U.S. These refineries are optimized to process heavy Venezuelan crude.
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This heavy, sour crude is plentiful, but not all refineries in the West and Midwest have innards strong enough to digest it.
The majority new oil being developed are heavy, sour crude oils which have a high sulfur content, high viscosity, and high density.
One positive caveat: Prices for Canadian Heavy are discounted now because of the shortage of pipeline capacity for carrying heavy oil sands crude out of western Canada.
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Its ugly relative--heavy, sour crude--sells at a discount of 10% to 25%, depending on blend and location, because it takes more refining to break down its hydrocarbons and remove its higher sulfur content.
Second, Venezuela's crude is too heavy and too sulfurous for China's refineries once it gets there.
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