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Colombia's refinery investment doubles
By Cris Whetton
InTech’s
Switzerland
Petroleumworld.com 08 13 07Switzerland’s Glencore International AG will more than double its planned investment in Colombia’s second largest oil refinery, owned by state-owned oil company Ecopetrol. The $2 billion (€1.5 billion) upgrade to 150,000 barrels a day of production, from a current 80,000, will be financed partly by the proceeds from Ecopetrol’s $631 million sale last year to Glencore of a 51% stake in the refinery in the Caribbean port of Cartagena. Previously, the companies had planned to spend $880 million (€650 million) to produce 140,000 barrels of lower-quality fuel oil.
Meanwhile, Swiss-based oil trader Vitol is in talks with the government of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates to buy a mothballed 100,000 barrels per day oil refinery. The refinery shut down last year when its former owner, Metro Oil Corp, went bankrupt in February 1998. Officials used it in the last few years for oil storage. Fujairah, on the Gulf of Oman just outside the shipping chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz, is one of the world’s largest ship refueling centers.
In Spain, Cepsa plans to spend $2.27 billion (€1.65 billion) between now and 2010. To reduce the shortage of middle distillates on the Spanish market, especially automobile diesel, Cepsa plans to increase its production of diesel and aviation kerosene by 3.2 million metric tons/year. Of the planned spending, $1.57 billion (€1.14 billion) will go toward increasing middle distillate capacity at the Huelva refinery. The refineries of Gibraltar-San Roque, at Cadiz, and that of Tenerife at Santa Cruz will see energy efficiency improvements, as well as some increase in middle distillate capacity.
In the Netherlands, BP wants to build a hydrocracker unit at its Rotterdam Nerefco refinery and will make an investment decision in 2009. Last month, BP agreed to buy 31% in the 400,000 barrel a day Nerefco from U.S.-based Chevron Corp., becoming the sole owner of Europe’s second biggest oil refinery. Nerefco does not have a hydrocracker. The investment could be about $1 billion (€750,000). BP said it would make a final investment decision in 2009, so construction could start in 2010 and the hydrocracker could become operational in 2011-2012.
InTech’s 10 08 07
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