Products2

Crude Oil

There are more than 300 different types of crude oil which differ quite significantly from country to country, some sweet, some sour, all with varying blends and varying percentages of sulphur content and API values. However, the etymology of the word oil is Petro meaning rock and Oleum meaning oil. Crude Oil is a naturally occurring flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other organic liquid compounds that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth’s surface. The name petroleum covers the both naturally occurring unprocessed crude oils and petroleum products that are made of refined crude oil. It is generally thought that all oils are black, however, some light crudes can range from pale yellow, shades of red and brown finally through to black. Even with reflection of light, oil may appear green, yellow with blue, red, brown and black. Crude Oil is recovered mostly through oil drilling. It is refined and separated, most easily by boiling point, into a large number of consumer products, from gasoline (petrol) and kerosene, to asphalt and chemical reagents used to make plastics and pharmaceuticals. Crude Oil is used in manufacturing a wide variety of materials, and it is estimated that the world consumes about 90 million barrels each day.

Light Crude Oil

Light crude oil is liquid petroleum that has a low density and flows freely at room temperature. Light crude oil receives a higher price than heavy crude oil on commodity markets because it produces a higher percentage of gasoline (petrol) and diesel fuel when converted into products by an oil refinery. There is a wide variety of benchmark crude oils worldwide as previously indicated which are considered to be light. The most prominent is North America as West Texas Intermediate (WTI) which it is often referred to by publications when quoting oil prices and used primarily in the US. The most commonly referenced benchmark oil from Europe is Brent Crude which is a mix of crude oil from 15 different oil fields in the North Sea. The third most commonly quoted benchmark is Dubai Crude, also known as Fateh, which is produced in the United Arab Emirates. Dubai’s only refinery at Jebel Ali, takes condensates as feedstocks, and therefore all of Dubai’s crude production is exported. For many years it was the only freely traded crude oil in the Middle East, but gradually a spot market has developed in Omani crude as well.

Heavy Crude Oil or Extra Heavy Crude Oil

Heavy or Extra Heavy Crude Oil is a type of petroleum that is hard to transport because of high viscosity and specific gravity and cannot easily flow to production wells under normal reservoir conditions. It is closely related to natural bitumen from oil sands. Bitumen is the heaviest, thickest form of petroleum. It is a more prevalent form of oil rather than light sweet crude. Production, transportation and refining of heavy crude oil present special challenges compared to light crude oil, thereby making it not environmentally friendly. This type of crude oil is often priced at a discount to lighter crude oils due to high refining costs and high sulphur content for some sources.
There are two main types of heavy crude oil:

Those that have over 1% sulphur (high sulphur crude oils) with aromatics and asphaltenes, and these are mostly found in North America (Canada – Alberta and Saskatchewan), United States (California), Mexico, South America (Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador) and the Middle East (Kuwait and Saudi Arabia).
Those that have less than 1% sulphur (low sulphur crude oils) with aromatics, naphthenes and resins, and these are mostly found in Western Africa (Chad), Central Africa (Angola) and East Africa (Madagascar).

Bitumen

Oil sands, tar sands, or more technically, bituminous sands, are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. Oil sand is either loose sand or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay and water, saturated with a dense and extremely viscous form of petroleum technically referred to as bitumen (or colloquially tar due to its similar appearance, odour and colour). Natural bitumen deposits are reported in many countries, but in particular are found in extremely large quantities in Canada. Other large reserves are located in Kazakhstan and Russia.

The estimated worldwide deposits of oil are more than 2 trillion barrels (320 billion cubic metres). The estimates include deposits that have not yet been discovered. Proven reserves of bitumen contain approximately 100 billion barrels and total natural bitumen reserves are estimated at 249.67 Gbbl.

Oil sands reserves have only recently been considered to be part of the world’s oil reserves, as high oil prices and new technology enable profitable extraction and processing. Oil produced from bitumen sands is often referred to as unconventional oil or crude bitumen, to distinguish it from liquid hydrocarbons produced from traditional oil wells. The crude bitumen contained in the Canadian oil sands is described by the National Energy Board of Canada as “a highly viscous mixture of hydrocarbons heavier than pentanes which, in its natural state, is not usually recoverable at a commercial rate through a well because it is too thick to flow”. Crude bitumen is a thick, sticky form of crude oil, so heavy and viscous, that it will not flow unless heated or diluted with lighter hydrocarbons such as light crude oil or natural-gas condensate.

At room temperature, it is much like cold molasses. The Orinoco Belt in Venezuela is sometimes described as oil sands, but these deposits are non-bituminous, falling instead into the category or heavy or extra-heavy oil due to their lower viscosity. Natural bitumen and extra-heavy oil differ in the degree by which they have been degraded from the original conventional oils by bacteria.

CST 180

CST 180 is obtained by petroleum distillation and it is used to generate heat as a power source for large commercial engines. The fuel is made of long hydrocarbon chains, alkanes, cycloalkanes and aromatics. This is heavier than gasoline and it generates large amount of heat when burning. With relatively high heating value and low corrosivity, fuel oil can be used as burning fuel for boilers and as flash point is quite high, fuel oil is fairly safe during usage and storing. Fuel oil is widely used as bunker boiler fuel, burning boiler fuel, metallurgical and industrial boiler fuel. It is applied in power generation, petrochemical, transportation, building and steel industries.

GasOil - D2

D2 is a diesel fuel made from refinery Distillate #2, also known as gasoil. Diesel used as fuels to cars is a variant of D2, but with additives to make the engine run better, in particular in the winter. D2 is a refinery abbreviation for GASOIL. It is the second distillate from the crude, and can be used without reformers and additives. So, the first engines used D2 as fuel - before petrol cars as we know them today was invented. That is because the engine invented by a German called Diesel, requires no spark plugs. The diesel engine will ignite and combust when the pressure increases so that the heated "plug" makes it explode. Here we get the name "Diesel" - since the same principles are used in diesel engines today. The principal differentiators in GASOIL or D2 is the content of sulphur.

Mazut - M100

Mazut is a heavy, low quality fuel oil used in generating plants and similar applications. In the US and Western Europe, mazut is blended or broken down, with the end product being diesel.

Mazut may be used for heating houses in the former USSR and in countries of the Far East that do not have the facilities to blend or break it down into more conventional petro-chemicals. In the West, furnaces that burn mazut are commonly called "waste oil" heaters or "waste oil" furnaces.

Mazut-100 is a fuel oil that is manufactured to GOST specifications, for example GOST 10585-75 (not active), GOST 10585-99 Oil fuel. Mazut. GOST is the Russian system of standards and is almost exclusively manufactured in the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.

GOST standards were originally developed by the government of the Soviet Union as part of its national standardisation strategy. The word GOST (Russian: ГОСТ) is an acronym for gosudarstvennyy standart (Russian:государственный стандарт), which means state standard.

This product is typically used for larger boilers in producing steam since the BTU content is high. The most important consideration (not the only consideration) when grading this fuel is the sulphur content, which can mostly be affected by the source feedstock. For shipment purposes, this product is considered a ”dirty oil” product, and because viscosity drastically affect whether it is able to be pumped, shipping has unique requirements.

The main difference between the different types of Mazut-100 is the content of sulphur.

Very Low Sulphur mazut is generally made from the lowest sulphur crude feedstocks. It has a very limited volume to be exported because:

The number of producers in Russia is limited. Refineries which produce this are generally the largest of oil companies.

A minimum of half of the total volume is sold only to the domestic market in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Most of the remainder of this specific product are reserved by state quotas for state controlled companies abroad. The remaining volumes available for export are sold according to state quotas, via state auctions, accessible only to Russian domestic companies with special access and experience with these auctions, which makes it very difficult to source.

Low to high sulphur mazut is available from Russia and other CIS countries (Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan). The technical specifications are represented in the same way, according to the Russian GOST standard 10585-99. The Russian origin Mazut demands higher prices.

Jet Fuel - JP54/A-1

JP54 is an abbreviation for ‘Jet Propulsion, A1, Colonial Grade 54’. Jet fuel or aviation turbine fuel (ATF) is a type of aviation fuel designed for use in aircraft powered by gas-turbine engines. It is colourless to straw-coloured in appearance. The most commonly used fuels for commercial aviation are Jet A and Jet A-1, which are produced to a standardised international specification. The only other jet fuel commonly used in civilian turbine-engine powered aviation is Jet B, which is used for its enhanced cold-weather performance. Jet A has been used in North America since the 1950’s, but it is currently only being used in the US. Jet A-1 is the standard in the rest of the world. The main difference between the two fuels is the freezing point. Jet B fuel is commonly used in civilian turbine-engine powered aviation because of its enhanced cold-weather performance.