High oil prices, declining oil production - these subjects seem to monopolize thepetroleum/peak oil headlines. One small piece of good news is Venezuela's recent announcement that they plan on building three new oil refineries.
Venezuela president Chavez said the state oil company, PDVSA, plans on building three new oil refineries in coming years and that his government would be willing to discuss establishing a new OPEC price band for world oil prices. Two new refineries will have a capacity of 50,000 barrels a day each, and a third would process as much as 400,000 barrels a day. "We also plan to expand other refineries such as the ones in Puerto La Cruz, and El Palito so they can process heavy crude," Chavez said.
These refineries will not make up for the loss of oil from depletion, in other parts of the world, during the time that they are built, but at least it is some slowing of the decline of oil production. What will the refineries, already built, do to maintain their supply of oil? Many of them couldn't handle the heavy oil that these refineries will use, a growing problem in many refineries, so maybe they just operate at lower capacity since they will have trouble finding crude. And what is this about a new price band? It surely can't be lower than the $50.00 - $60.00 price range that I last heard from OPEC.
The press certainly has caught on to the high prices of oil, and in some cases its relationship to declining oil production, as is evidenced by these headlines. Read a few of these articles if you have missed them or just want to gain some insight into the current price crises.
Why Oil Prices Will Stay High
OPEC Reveals Global Light Sweet Crude Peaked
How much oil do we really have?
The twilight era of petroleum
Is Oil Heading for $100 a barrel
Wall Street giants see oil rising
En route to $75 oil
What keeps driving oil prices higher?
2005 oil outlook: Is this the year when demand outstrips supply?
How serious is peak oil?
5 bucks a gallon for gas? Expert sees it coming in 2006
Why are gas prices so high?
Reference:
"Venezuela will build three new oil refineries, President Chavez says", Canada.com, National Post, 8/19/05
Technocrati tags: oil refineries, peak oil, oil price crises
another thing to swallow..oil prices just keep on rising and the sad thing is., we cant do anything about it.
Posted by: butterfly valve | January 12, 2009 at 08:14 AM