Economic incentives for US refiners to process incremental domestic heavy crude oil
- Bonner & Moore Associates, Inc., Houston, TX (United States)
Faced with declining domestic crude supplies and increasing refined product demands, U.S. refiners devote a great deal of attention to securing alternate sources of crude oil. In addition to the traditional and cost-effective choice of imports, a potentially viable source is domestic heavy crude oil. Working with the U.S. Department of Energy and its contractor, the National Institute for Petroleum and Energy Research, Bonner & Moore undertook a project to ascertain the necessary adjustments U.S. refiners would need to make in order to process incremental amounts of heavy crude oil added to domestic refining slates between now and 2010. Results of this study indicated that significant economic investments would be required in order to process these crudes; processing of lighter imports, however, would remain substantially less costly. It would seem, then, that U.S. refiners would elect to process imports over incremental domestic heavy crudes unless they were offered some type of economic incentive to process the heavy oil. This paper addresses the issue of what those economic incentives could be.
- OSTI ID:
- 229600
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9502114--Vol.2
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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