Venezuelan state PDVSA has restarted its 202,000 b/d Petrocedeno extra heavy crude upgrader at 118,000 b/d, or 58.4% of capacity, despite the country’s deficit of naphtha, a company technical report seen Tuesday showed Tuesday. According to previous PDVSA technical reports, the production at the Petrocedeno joint venture (PDVSA 60% and Total/Equinor 40%) was stopped February 10, when inventories of naphtha ran out. Naphtha is used to lighten the extra heavy crudes produced in the Orinoco Belt region.
PDVSA operates four heavy crude upgraders: the 120,000 b/d Petro San Felix; the 120,000 b/d Petromonagas, a joint venture with Russia’s rosneft; 202,000 b/d; Petrocedeno, a joint venture of Total and Equinor and the 190,000 b/d Petropiar, a JV of PDVSA with Chevron, according to recent PDVSA figures. All four upgraders are located in the southern part of Venezuela’s Anzoategui state. The Sinovensa mixing plant is located in Morichal, Monagas state. The technical report said that the upgrader Petropiar is operating at 150,000 b/d, or 78.9% of its capacity. The Petro San Felix upgrader has been shut since June, but PDVSA expects to restart it on March 15.
Updates on the Petromonagas upgrader and Sinovensa were not available in the technical report. Upgraded crude production by PDVSA and its international partners at five upgrader facilities has been declining from its maximum capacity of 762,000 b/d capacity because of the lack of extra heavy crude as naphtha and light crude. The naphtha deficit reaches 62,000 b/d to maintain the production of upgrader crude, according to the technical report.
The lack of diluent is threatening to push Venezuela’s already declining crude production even lower. S&P Global Platts estimates Venezuela pumped 1.16 million b/d in January, down from 2.35 million b/d two years prior. US sanctions on PDVSA amount to a de facto ban on US imports of Venezuelan crude, and a prohibition on US exports of roughly 120,000 b/d of diluent used to blend heavy Orinoco Belt crude for export.