<Due Diligence: A reader's response to Khosla The Oil Drum DrumBeat: August 14, 2006>

100 comments on Saudi oil production revisited

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MicroHydro on August 13, 2006 - 11:53pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Of note, I did not see any mention of how they are going to deal with the high vanadium content of the Manifa crude, only the heavy weight.
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DIYer on August 14, 2006 - 8:33am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Doesn't vanadium have some industrial uses? How much vanadium is there in this oil?
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LeGorfou on August 14, 2006 - 9:06pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Vanadium has some limited industrial use, mainly in high quality steel alloys. The current cost of the pentoxide is $8 per pound.

While Vanadium can be (must be as it poisons the catalysts) extracted from oil, the cost and difficulty of doing so is high.  The amount of Vanadium in even the most contaminated oil is worth less than 1 cent per kg oil - which I believe is far less than the cost of extracting the Vanadium.

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wkwillis on August 14, 2006 - 10:38pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
We used to burn oil for energy in steam plants. Vanadium was just trapped in the filters with the rest of the ashes from oil. Easy to get it out.
But that is treating oil like a convenient form of coal. Which in 1957 it was, pricewise.
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100 comments on Saudi oil production revisited

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