big oil finally stepping up to the plate:
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"ChevronTexaco is proposing a new Faja project composed of exploration and production, a new pipeline and an upgrader to produce 200,000 to 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) of high-quality synthetic crude and products," Ali Moshiri, the U.S. oil company's president for Latin America, said.
The vast extra heavy oil reserves of the world's No. 5 oil exporter are too heavy to be processed by normal refineries. Orinoco oil must be upgraded into synthetic crude or blended with lighter crude before it can be processed in overseas plants.
A deal for the new ChevronTexaco project would be signed under terms offered by Venezuela's 2001 hydrocarbons law, Moshiri said. Some foreign companies have criticized the law as unfavorable to new investment projects.
But some companies already operating in the Orinoco have said new projects could be viable if they are able to tie into infrastructure already built for existing heavy oil plants.
ChevronTexaco already is partnered with state oil company PDVSA in one extra heavy oil project, Hamaca, which is scheduled to complete construction on a 190,000-bpd synthetic crude unit in the fourth quarter of 2004.
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Now lets see if somebody steps up to the plate on gas hydrates. There is 10^4 gigatons of that conservatively.
