Replies

If the refinery has a delayed coker, this problem goes away. They can chew up the asphalt stream in the heavy crude, get a cut of gasoline, coker gas oil (distillate) and other useful, upgradable products. Three new cokers at existing refineries are coming on line in 2006.

Actually if I remember correctly as many as 8 refineries are upgrading their coker process and there are other improvements made constantly. Also most of the cracking units have to be upgrade to handle the temps. More cokers are required because the gas cut is less and the additional cokers allow them to maintain production. No new refineries should be built without the ability to handle heavy oil.

Cokers are the key to Canadian heavies (Cold Lake, Lloydminster, etc). I noticed that three new units were coming on line besides the upgrade/expansion of existing cokers. One was at Cenex/Laurel, a small refinery, but significant when you consider its a coop and a new coker is quite expensive.