SA does have excess heavy sour crude for which the world has limited refining capacity. Thats why the Reliance refinery I mentioned will put more gasoline on the world market and so will other refineries being constructed in SA now.
Just so you know, "heavy" and "light" refers to the specific gravity or number of carbon atoms in the molecules. The lighter the crude, the higher yield of gasoline (which is the premium product derived from crude oil) you get from distillation, the basic process in refineries. But refineries which have additionally invested in catalytic cracking units can break or crack the long carbon molecules into shorter ones, thus yielding gasoline even from the heavier end of the crude. My understanding is that about 3/4 of US refining capacity can handle heavy crudes. That percentage is very high by world standards. Over half of all refinery capacity in the world can't handle socalled heavy crude.
"Sweet" vs "sour" refers to sulfur content. The more sour, the more SO2 that will be given off when burned. But this can be removed, but again that costs money to do.
The US has refining capacity that can handle ANWR crude. BTW Prudhoe Bay, Mexico, and VZ - all sources of sour crude to the US are all in production decline.
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ANWR is pristine.....one of the few places left on the earth like it. Pristine means untouched by human hands. You bring in oil equipment and that changes everything no matter how diligent everyone is.
There are Eskimos living there so human hands have touched the place. There is an Eskimo village (Kaktovik) located in ANWR and the residents favor opening it to oil and gas exploration"
anwr.org
It is also a wildlife refuge. Prudhoe Bay hasn't hurt the wildlife there and developing ANWR won't hurt its wildlife. The only people who'll mind are elitist environmentalists who derive psychic pleasure from knowing there is no oil development there.
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Its been reported repeatedly that ANWR oil is very sour.
It may be. People who assume that are probably generalizing based on Prudhoe Bay.
Would it not be reasonable to suspect they've done some drilling to determine the quality and quantity of the oil?
No.
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The first myth about ANWR is that we can solve today's oil problem by drilling there. The second myth about ANWR is that drilling there would provide us with "energy independence."
There isn't anywhere that we could drill that would by itself "solve todays oil problem" or provide "energy independence". Its idiotic imo to argue from that we shouldn't bother to drill anwhere.
The third myth about ANWR is that drilling would produce a "supply effect" on gasoline prices. In that Economics 101 formulation, as oil supply increases, gasoline prices will drop. But the government throws cold water on that myth, too, because "OPEC and other producers may cut output to offset the supply effect." In other words, OPEC won't sit still as we force price reductions — they'll match our production increases with production decreases to keep supply steady and prices high.
OPEC may or may not cut their production to match anything we produce. Again, that is no reason to conclude we should forego producing from anywhere.
Besides there's a balance of payments issue here.
The fourth myth about ANWR is that we "know" there's an awful lot of oil just waiting to be pumped there. But the government admits that "there is much uncertainty"
Sure, but we can resolve that uncertainty by exploring.
The fifth myth about ANWR is that so-called "limited-footprint" technologies would minimize environmental harm.
Its worked reasonably well at Prudhoe Bay. |
