Project Profile
Value: US$5 billion
Location: Orinoco Belt area, Venezuela
Start-up Year: 2008
Production: 200,000 barrels of heavy crude per day, processed into 180,000 barrels of
light crude
The Petrocedeño strategic association in the Orinoco Belt was formed by Total, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) and Statoil. This strategic association, originally named Sincor, was migrated to a Mixed Company setup, under the name of Petrocedeño, where PDVSA holds 60%, Total 30.33 % and Statoil 9.67. The Petrocedeño agreement has duration of 25 years starting in 2008. Sincor (now Petrocedeño) was conceived as a project to improve extra-heavy crude oil from the Orinoco Belt area, the greatest accumulation of such resources in the world, and transform it into syncrude of a higher quality than Brent Blend reference crude. This product, known as Zuata Sweet, has about 32° API, with very low sulphur content and no residue. The project’s upgrading plant is located at Jose Complex located in eastern Venezuela. On a daily basis, the design capacity is close to 200,000 extra-heavy oil barrels, which give approximately 180,000 barrels of high-quality syncrude (30-32 API). In addition, 6,000 tonnes of coke and 900 tonnes of sulphur are produced as by-products which are sold on the world market.
Total investments for Sincor (now Petrocedeño) were of approximately US$5 billion. The upgrading plant is designed to process about 2,530 million barrels of extra-heavy crude into some 2,250 million barrels of syncrude during its 35 years of operation. Petrocedeño is the most advanced and largest extra-heavy crude project in Venezuela, and represents the largest single private investment in this sector. Current plateau output is about 200,000 barrels of heavy crude per day, processed into 180,000 barrels of light crude.
Operators:
Statoil: Operator with 9.67% interest
Total: 30.33% interest
PDVSA: 60% interest