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Due to supply-demand imbalance of light sweet crudes, many refineries around the world have been relying on lower-quality opportunity crudes. The following figure compares the quantity and quality of crude produced in 2008 to the quantity and quality of existing crude reserves. It is obvious from the figure that while refiners currently prefer processing light sweet crude, this crude quality actually makes up the smallest portion of crude reserves. Almost 38% of the crude processed in 2008 was light and sweet, but light sweet reserves make up only 16% of all recoverable reserves. On the other hand, less than 13% of the crude processed in 2008 was heavy, but heavy reserves—including oilsands, but not oil shale reserves—make up over 38% of recoverable reserves. The trend is clear—future refining will have to move towards processing heavier and sourer crudes. In fact, the refining industry has already seen a significant shift in this direction; in the US Between 1985 and 2005, the average sulfur content of crude imported into the US rose to 1.4% from 0.9%, and the average API gravity fell to 30.2°API from 32.5°API. Since 2005, the trends leveled off somewhat, and have remained largely steady to 2010....Log-in for complete content
