North West Refining's Ian MacGregor
BASIC COURSE IN THE VALUE OF REFINING WESTERN CANADIAN CRUDE
Mike Priaro, P.Eng.
First uploaded April 23, 2018
I can't believe I have to spell this out to some "engineers" commenting on Linkedin. —Mike Priaro
Western Canada Select (WCS), the benchmark western Canada heavy crude, contains significantly less than one barrel of bitumen/extra heavy crude/heavy crude per barrel of WCS—the rest is diluent in dilbit.
North West Refining's new Sturgeon refinery will produce, for every barrel of bitumen/extra heavy crude/heavy crude in its dilbit feedstock, one barrel of high-value products—ultra-low sulphur diesel, and low sulphur vacuum gas oil (VGO) which can be blended into a premium low-sulphur marine fuel.
Both will sell at a premium to regular gasoline.
The refinery also saves the ~$10 per-barrel-of-WCS cost of importing and exporting diluent which is subsidized by every Albertan because diluent costs are deductible when calculating royalties.
The Sturgeon Refinery's cracking, or breaking, of the long-chain hydrocarbons in bitumen/extra heavy crude/heavy crude, and the subsequent addition of hydrogen, yields a liquid product volume which is at least as large in volume as the initial volume of bitumen/extra heavy crude/heavy crude in the feedstock—even after netting out the volumes of residual asphalt, recovered diluent, and top-end LPG products.
MIke Priaro, P.Eng.
Calgary
403-281-2156
