Energy Chamber: V’zuelan oil could be viable option

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3 Hrs Ago

WITH strongman Nicolas Maduro languishing in an American prison, and his right-hand woman Delcy Rodriguez given US backing to be that country’s interim president.

In a release on its website, the Energy Chamber gave a historical perspective in showing that despite all the talk of natural gas, there is also an oil basis of a partnership between this country and its closest South American neighbour.

Over the past few years there has been a great deal of discourse in Trinidad and Tobago about the opportunities to import natural gas from Venezuela to Trinidad for processing into petrochemical or LNG and re-exporting the final products to international markets.

This continues to be a major area of interest and especially with the Dragon gas field, the chamber acknowledged.

“While the current focus is on gas, there was a time in the past when TT imported substantial volumes of crude oil from Venezuela primarily as feedstock for the now mothballed Point-a-Pierre refinery.”

The release said that in 2000, TT imported over 18 million barrels of crude oil from Venezuela, which at the time represented over half of TT’s imported crude – or the equivalent to just over 50,000 barrels per day, roughly equal to the current domestic production of TT.

To some, the chamber said, it might be surprising that TT imported oil at all.

“However, this was done mainly to supplement domestic production for the refinery as local output fell. Annually, the country imported around 30 million barrels (over 80,000 barrels per day) of crude from sources around the world, including Venezuela, other parts of Latin America, Canada, Russia, and Africa.”

The chamber said crude oil that was imported from Venezuela did not all go to the refinery for processing. There were some volumes from Venezuela that were imported, stored and the re-exported using the Point Fortin terminal and tank farm. There was also Venezuelan crude that was processed at Point-a-Pierre to create lube oils for export.

In the early 2000s, PDVSA, the state oil company of Venezuela, were actually members of the Energy Chamber (then called the South Trinidad Chamber). They were even regular attendees and speakers at the TT Energy Conference (or Petroleum Conference as it was originally known).

Over time, however, this relationship slipped, as did the imports of crude from Venezuela.

Imports eventually stopped in 2009, after which other sources were sought. During the peak years, Venezuelan oil played a critical role in supporting refinery operations, supplying the volumes needed to sustain output.

The refinery has a capacity of approximately 175,000 barrels of oil per day.

Domestic production from TT alone could not meet this demand; therefore, imports were necessary to keep the refinery operational. In 2018, when the refinery closed, domestic production was 63,000 barrels per day.

Production continues to slip, however, and domestic production now stands at approximately 53,000 barrels per day.

“If the refinery does restart, as everyone in the industry hopes, then the refinery operators will have to find new sources of crude to import. A revitalized Venezuela oil industry could potentially be one source,” the chamber said.