Coping
with high oil prices at Petrotrin
By
Louis
B Homer
Trinidad
Express
Port
Spain
Petroleumworld.com
08 22 06
WHILE STATE-OWNED oil company Petrotrin is engaged
in a billion-dollar investment to upgrade its Pointe-a-Pierre
Refinery, the company also is seeing its profits
dwindle as a result of high oil prices.
In an interview with the
Business Express, Wayne Bertrand, President Operations
of the company, said the high oil prices are adversely
affecting profits because the company is forced
to purchase more than half the amount of crude that
is required to operate the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery.
"Petrotrin does not
produce enough crude to keep the refinery going.
It has to import crude from outside," said
Bertrand.
Bertrand said that "on
a daily basis, Petrotrin refines 160,000 barrels
of crude oil at the refinery at Pointe-a-Pierre
of which only 70,000 is available from local sources.
This means that 90,000 barrels of crude oil must
be imported everyday at the current price of close
to US$75 per barrel. In this instance, the current
high price of oil is working against us."
Bertrand said the Pointe-a-Pierre
refinery is still "at the back of the class"
when compared to similar refineries in other parts
of the world.
The refinery still produces
35 per cent low value fuel oil at a time when the
markets are demanding cleaner, greener, environmentally
friendly, higher valued fuels. Fuel oil is priced
at US$15.00-US$22.00 below crude oil prices.
Bertrand said the company
has embarked on a number of initiatives aimed at
turning around the productivity at the refinery
so that it would be able to compete effectively
on the international market.
He said the upgrade included
a gasolene optimisation unit at a cost of $4.1 billion
and a diesel optimisation at a cost of $900 million,
to improve the quality of the final product.
The targeted date for completion
of these projects is December 2008. In addition
to the optimsation programme, plans are underway
to launch a new maintenance, planning and scheduling
system as part of a drive to upgrade Maintenance
Services at the refinery and its ancillary services.
A number of new units are
to be constructed. They include an Isomerisation
Complex, Alkylation Unit, and a Continuous Catalyst
Regeneration Platformer complex, while the existing
Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit or Cat Cracker will
be upgraded.
"We will continue to
improve our current operations and prepare for future
growth in both the domestic and international areas,"
he said.
Bertrand explained that the
key to the success of the initiatives will depend
on full utilisation of human resources of the company.
Bertrand told Business Express
that at present the production of crude oil is down
and in order to increase the level of production,
the company has embarked on a programme to rework
existing fields by using advanced methods to stimulate
production.
In addition, "the company
has inherited mature exploration and production
fields and if we are to increase our production
in the producing fields, we must invest billions
of dollars over the next five years in capital projects,
just to stay in business," said Bertrand.
In the area of exploration
and production of crude oil, he said it would be
necessary to allocate a greater proportion of capital
expenditure to upstream operations.
"We must arrest the
decline in oil production, and enter more aggressively
into the gas arena and reduce operating costs in
Petrotrin's mature onshore and offshore fields.
This is the only way we can stay in business,"
said Bertrand.
The
company's capital expenditure in exploration and
production is projected at some $9 billion over
the next six years.
Trinidad Express
Wednesday,
August 16th 2006
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