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Robert has said many times that he doesn't see that the US is processing more heavy sour crude than we did 10 years ago, so I believe he doesn't think it's a factor.
I think it makes intuitive sense that we are producing more heavy sour than we used to. This would explain why we have large stocks of crude, many refinery maintenance problems, lower refinery capacity, and more expensive gasoline. Robert doesn't seem to buy it and he has found no stats to really support this idea.
My understanding is that the transition to ULSD (Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel) has lead to more breakdowns. Apparently the process to remove Sulphur involves some pretty maintenance intensive equipment, and when that goes down they have to shut down the refinery to fix it. That is one of the more reasonable explanations I have heard.
Oh and more happy news on the Diesel front, most diesel engine manufacturers are going to SCR (Selective Catalyst Reduction) to meet the 2010 NOx standards. Part of the SCR process includes injecting Urea into the exhaust stream. Unfortunately Urea is derived from Natural Gas.
Yeah, that actually does sound reasonable though again it would be nice if someone can confirm or otherwise explain.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
Robert has said many times that he doesn't see that the US is processing more heavy sour crude than we did 10 years ago, so I believe he doesn't think it's a factor
One more time, this is not what I said. There is a clear trend toward heaving and more sour crudes in the past 10 years. My point is that the quality has been relatively stable for a least a few years. In other words, we didn't suddenly develop refinery problems because we are suddenly processing poorer quality crude. The crude quality is almost identical to what it was 2 years ago. That's according to the EIA statistics.
OK, sorry and apologies, but still the EIA stats are not showing a sudden drop in quality of crude entering the US refineries.
Wish I knew what percentage of the refineries in the US could handle what levels of crude quality and what kind of runs they've been using in the last three years. It would be interesting to look at it on a refinery by refinery basis to see if there are any patterns.