The Million Dollar Way (The Bakken Oil Blog): API

Showing posts with label API. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 1, 2024

"Types" Of Crude Oil And Crude Oil Benchmarks

Locator: 47116OIL.

This was posted years ago. At the time I knew less about crude oil so there may be errors, both content errors and typographical errors. I'm posting it again without changes, except for expanding on Mexico / Pemex.

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Original Post With Pemex Update

FAQ #88 over at the "FAQs Page."

Disclaimer: some/much/all of this could be wrong. I've put this together over the years, from different sources. Information is not always confirmed and often not updated. It's for my own personal interest to help me sort this out. This should not be used by folks who are seriously invested in this issue.

April 18, 2019: Argus announces two new benchmarks: WTL (West Texas Light) and NSD (North Sea Dated).

From the first link;

WTI: Cushing
WTI Permian: 40-44°API
WTI Midland: Midland terminals (light oil, 44.1-49.9°API)
WTL: Houston (light oil, 44.1-49.9°API)

February 7, 2019: RBN Energy has nice update regarding this subject.

February 18, 2019: see heavy oil, a primer, here.

Types / Grades / API / Sweet / Sour

NYMEX:

light crude oil for domestic U.S. oil as having an API gravity between 37° API and 42° API
light crude oil for non-U.S. oil as being between 32° API and 42° API

Canadian National Energy Board:

light crude oil as having a density API gravity greater than 30.1°

Alberta, government; Alberta process most of Canada's oil:

API gravity greater than 35° API

Pemex, Mexican state oil company:

light crude oil as being between 27° API and 38° API

This variation in definition occurred because countries such as Canada and Mexico tend to have heavier crude oils than are commonly found in the United States, whose large oil fields historically produced lighter oils than are found in many other countries.

Loop Sour: see this post.

LOOP Sour comprises US Gulf of Mexico grades Mars and Poseidon and a crude blend called Segregation 17, named after a cavern into which the Middle Eastern grades Arab Medium, Basrah Light and Kuwait Export Crude can be delivered. The grade has been most similar to Mars in terms of API gravity over the past 12 months, averaging 0.33 degree off Mars’ typical 29.44; and from a sulfur standpoint, averaging 0.02 percentage point off Arab Medium’s typical 2.53%.

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Benchmarks

Much, but not all, information below comes from wiki.

WTI

A wide variety of benchmark crude oils worldwide are considered to be light. The most prominent in North America is West Texas Intermediate (WTI):
API gravity of 39.6° API; lighter than Brent, but not by much
sulfur: 0.24% (sweet oil is defined as oil with sulfur content less than 0.5%)

Brent Crude

"basket" changed in early 2017 due to older fields depleting

Platts will add Norway's Troll to the basket of four British and Norwegian crude grades which is already uses to assess dated Brent from January 1, 2018
this will join Brent, Forties, Oseberg, Ekofisk, or BFOE as they are known
Troll: a light, sweet crude; operated by Statoil (also contributes to the Oseberg, Statfjord, Gullfaks, Grane and Asgard streams)

the most commonly referenced benchmark oil from Europe is Brent Crude, which is
38.06° API

Dubai Crude

the third most commonly quoted benchmark is Dubai Crude, which is 31° API
this is considered light by Arabian standards but would not be considered light if produced in the U.S.

Murban Crude:

became a "thing" after sanctions on Russia cut Russia oil to the US
light sour; very similar to Bakken (light) but much more sulfur content
see blog entry here;

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Others

Saudia Arabia's Ghawar field:

the largest oil field in the world, Saudi Arabia's Ghawar field
light crude oils ranging from 33° API to 40° API (see above; most would consider Saudi oil to be medium/heavy; and sour

Alaska North Slope: from XOM --

31.4°
sulfur: 0.96%

Bakken:

36 to 44 degrees API. The quality of this oil is excellent, almost identical to WTI. The benchmark crude oil is West Texas Intermediate, which is 40 degrees API sweet crude. It is the benchmark because it requires the least amount of processing in a modern refinery to make the most valuable products, unleaded gasoline and diesel fuel.

North Dakota Spearfish: 36°

presentation, Corinthian, undated, perhaps early 2014
sulfur content: 0.8% to 1%

Mexico: generally heavy to medium-light; sulfur content (chart added May 1, 2024 -- link:

Figure 1. Typical Qualities of Pemex Crude Oils. Source: Pemex

Isthmus: 21.8°.3.3% sulfur
Maya: 33.4°; 1.35% sulfur
Olmeca: 37.3°; 0.84% sulfur

Iraqi: heavy oil

Crude oil found in Iraq varies significantly in quality, with API gravities generally ranging from 22° (heavy) to 35° (medium - light).

Over 70% of national oil reserves are below 28° API and the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted in its 2012 report on Iraq that future production is likely to include a larger share of heavier crudes. However some of the crudes produced at the Taq Taq field in the norther semi-autonomous Kurdistan region are as light as 48° API, dubbed by Reuters as "champagne crude." See Taq Taq here.

California: heavy oil; pdf here -- old data, from 2004, but type of oil probably has not changed

Kern County: heavy oil with 1.2% sulfur; accounts for 75% of California's on-shore production
Los Angeles Basin: heavy oil; sulfur content 1.7% to 2.0%
Off-shore: intermediate for the most part, 18° (heavy) to 36° (medium-light)

Ecuador: heavy oil; 24.1°

Seeks low-sulphur, light oil, September 1, 2015:

Net crude exporter Petroecuador issued a tender to import 30 million barrels of light sweet crude over the course of a year in an attempt to maximize diesel and gasoline production when its Esmeraldas refinery comes back online in the fourth quarter, market sources said Tuesday.

Petroecuador is seeking 30 million barrels of low sulfur crude oil with an API gravity of 28 degrees to be delivered in a one-year period, according to a tender issued late Monday.

The state-owned oil company is seeking the barrels "in order to optimize the Esmeraldas refinery operations, once the revamping has been complete," the tender said.

Venezuela: heavy oil, similar to Canadian oil sands.

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Notes From All Over, Early Morning Edition -- Somehow We Made It To April; Only Three More Months To Go -- The Index Case? -- April 1, 2020

Remember her cough? There is now talk that Hillary was the index case in the US.

Bakken 101: Over at twitter today, for some odd reason:

Perhaps more later. I'm tracking down Hillary's travel schedule starting two years ago or so. Did she travel to Wuhan City, Hubei, China? This would explain a lot.

Path to replacing Biden? No convention, no delegate voting, DNC to decide?

Rasmussen:

This is a most interesting poll. The results are interesting but that's not the most interesting part. See if you can guess what I think is most interesting about this poll. Link here.

Friday, February 15, 2019

Heavy Vs Light Oil -- A Primer -- February 15, 2018

This link was posted earlier today.

https://t.co/nnJ6yljeHC -- a PDF will likely load on your desktop.

In the appendix of this 2018 ENI review are some incredible graphics of all the various crude oils produced in the world, "mapped" out based on daily volume production, sulfur content, and API (heavy vs light).

It is an incredible resource. This is one of the graphs which includes the "most important" crude oils from around the world. Because of the size of the graphic, it's hard to get a good screenshot. My recommendation: go to the link and and check it out for yourself.

Screenshot:

Zoom in on the low sulfur, light oil, upper left-hand corner of that graphic:

The legend for this table:

When you look at the graphic above, which country is most at risk? Link here.

I showed these graphics to Sophia last evening and her reaction! "Oh, now I get it!"

Sunday, February 11, 2018

Bakken Crude Oil Assay -- January, 2018 -- Statoil

From Border States Supply Chain Solutions:

Statoil published a new detailed assay for the US shale crude
Bakken, showing it slightly heavier and more sour than previously reported.

The assay, based on a sample taken December 8, 2017, shows Bakken to be 42.9
API and 0.17% sulfur.

The crude had a total acid number of 0.04 mgKOH/g, nickel at 1.4 ppm and vanadium at 3.8 ppm. (The full assay is available at
https://www.statoil.com/en/what-we-do/crude-oil-and-condensate-assays.html.)

Statoil last published an assay for Bakken in November, 2016. That assay
showed the crude to be 43.3 API and 0.07% sulfur, with lower TAN and metals
content.

With the Dakota Access Pipeline and ETCOP pipelines carrying Bakken to
the US Gulf Coast, the grade increasingly competes with other light sweet
grades in the region, such as West Texas Intermediate.

Google search: When the total sulfur level in the oil is more than 0.5% the oil is called "sour".

From an old (1994) post:

WTI price is used as a benchmark for pricing all other U.S. crude oils. The 410 API, 0.34 wt % sulfur crude is gathered in West Texas and moved to Cushing, OK, for distribution. That assay showed WTI API gravity to be 40.8.

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Eagle Ford TOC -- October 26, 2017

From: AAPG, posted May 8, 2017:

The source of the Cenomanian to Santonian petroleum systems across East and South Texas has been attributed to the Eagle Ford Shale play.

However, little effort has been made to distinguish the relationship between the depositional settings, organic facies, oil families, and lithostratigraphic characteristics of the source rock.

This study finds that there are significant variations in stratigraphy, reservoir type, and produced hydrocarbon chemistry between the South Texas Eagle Ford and the so-called East Texas Eagle Ford.

The South Texas Lower Eagle Ford Shale reservoir facies is dominated by organic-rich, relatively low clay, foraminfera-rich, coccolith mudstones/marlstones, whereas the superficially equivalent source rocks in East Texas have a much more dominant terrestrial influence.

In a regional reservoir modeling study at the confluence of East Texas and South Texas on the San Marcos Arch, the interplay of these depositional systems had to be accounted for to achieve reliable results. The model included analysis of cores from multiple counties combining detailed stratigraphic facies descriptions and petrophysical data from the base of the Austin Chalk to the Buda Formation.

Source rock data is available from approximately 118 wells throughout this interval between the Austin Chalk and Buda. The dataset includes TOC, pyrolysis, and vitrinite reflectance data.

Based on TOC analyses across the entire trend, the average TOC of the East Texas and South Texas Eagle Ford is 3.43%.

Pyrolysis data and visual kerogen descriptions clearly show the South Texas Eagle Ford contains primarily Type II algae-rich oil prone kerogen. In contrast, the East Texas Eagle Ford contains type II kerogen with terrestrially derived mixed kerogen from the northeast.

Thermal maturity in the Eagle Ford play area varies systematically with structure independent of the depositional systems from early oil generation to dry gas trending northwest to southeast. Produced oil geochemistry data from 70 oils include bulk molecular compositions, Pristane/nC17, Phytane/nC18, Pristane/Phytane, C13 to C20 isoprenoids, saturate and aromatic carbon isotope compositions, sterane and hopane ratios.

The geochemical data suggest that the oils from the South Texas Eagle Ford and East Texas Eagle Ford plays are generated from two distinct types of organofacies. One type is dominantly carbonate mudstone sourced in South Texas, and the other type is siliciclastic marine shale sourced in East Texas.

See also: researchgate, January 6, 2016. TOC varies across the region, from 2% to 12%. The TOC increases from northeast to southwest.

API of crude oil across the US. Look how uniform the crude oil is in North Dakota compared to Texas; note how "heavy" California oil is compare to Texas and North Dakota.

Saturday, January 2, 2016

Look West! -- January 2, 2016

Updates

January 3, 2016: Union Pacific says it could ship as much as a million gallons of Bakken crude oil weekly through western Washington state. Don't let the hysteria fool you. NO ONE measures CBR in gallons. This was in an anti-oil publication. One million gallons of oil will take about one-third of a standard unit train. It will take about 30 tanks cars every week to get to one million gallons. It's a non-story, but it continues the "Look West!" saga.

Original Post

Disclaimer: in a long post like this there will be factual and typographic errors. I often misinterpret what I read. This has not been proofread. Errors will be corrected when discovered. If this information is important to you, go to the source.

For newbies, I think I may have run across three analyses of the Williston Basin that I had not linked before:

a USGS analysis accepted for publication in May, 2012; published in 2013
a DMR analysis of the Spearfish, 2011
a USGS/Department of Interior analysis of the Williston Basin, 2010; way outdated, but perhaps useful

"California Energy" is irregularly tracked here.

RBN had a series on North Dakota Bakken to California via CBR back in mid-2015. From one post in the series:

This time we turn to the future of rail shipments to the West Coast from North Dakota.

This data comes from Energy Information Administration (EIA) monthly crude rail movement estimates that began publishing in April 2015. Because the EIA does not break this data down within PADDs we assume that it largely covers CBR movements between North Dakota and West Coast refineries located in Washington State and California. This assumption is based on the location of rail loading terminals in PADD II (most are in North Dakota) and rail unloading terminals on the West Coast that are mostly linked to refineries in Washington and California.

Having made that assumption we further separated out CBR shipments to California from North Dakota that are reported separately by the California Energy Commission (CEC).

The CBR shipments to Washington are simply the EIA PADD II to PADD V totals minus California. Shipments to California are a fraction of the total – just 2-5 Mb/d in 2013 and 2014 and (according to CEC) have been zero since November 2014. So West Coast CBR from North Dakota is almost all headed to Washington State. The yellow line on the chart against the right axis is the ANS premium to WTI crude. ANS – Alaska North Slope - is the West Coast benchmark crude and West Texas Intermediate – WTI crude is the Midwest benchmark.

Nevertheless – it is clear that increasing CBR shipments to the West Coast in 2014 and continued average shipments in 2015 of 140 Mb/d were not driven by Alaska North Slope (ANS) premiums – because the latter were dismal compared to 2012.

In fact it seems clear that Bakken CBR shipments to Washington State have been and continue to be dominated by refinery demand.

There are 5 refineries in Washington State with combined capacity of 647 Mb/d. These refineries mostly process ANS crude shipped down from Valdez, AK, together with imported waterborne crude and Canadian crude shipped by pipeline to Vancouver.

Since 2012 – starting with the Tesoro Anacortes refinery they have each built or planned to build CBR unloading terminals that are designed to receive Bakken crude from North Dakota.

The only refinery that has yet to bring a CBR terminal online is Shell Puget Sound that had its permit for a 65 Mb/d rail terminal referred for an environmental impact study in February 2015 – likely delaying construction by at least another year (see update below).

The four rail terminals at the other refineries have so far been the primary destination of North Dakota CBR to the West Coast – with their combined capacity being responsible for the majority of the 140 Mb/d of rail shipments from North Dakota this year.

And although the refiner’s initial motivation was clearly to access cheaper Bakken crude they are also interested in securing domestic supplies to supplement declining ANS production.

Just as we saw with East Coast refiners they have made investments in CBR terminals and rail tank cars and are unlikely to give up using rail until an alternative mode of transport (e.g. pipeline) emerges (if ever).

The status of the Shell Puget Sound Environmental Impact Study:

The co-leads reviewed all comments received and have issued a scoping report that summarizes all comments. Preparation of a draft EIS is under way, with publication and public review, comment and hearings expected in the fall of 2016.

The most recent EIA energy analysis of California was a year ago. It will be updated January 21, 2016. The last EIA analysis (2015; most recent data, 2014):

California ranks third in the nation in petroleum refining capacity and accounts for more than one-tenth of the total U.S. capacity.
A network of crude oil pipelines connects the state's oil production to the refining centers located in the Central Valley, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay area.
California refiners also process large volumes of Alaskan and foreign crude oil received at ports in Los Angeles, Long Beach, and the Bay Area. Crude oil production in California and Alaska has declined, and California refineries have become increasingly dependent on imports to meet the state's needs.36,37 Led by Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Ecuador, foreign suppliers now provide more than half of the crude oil refined in California.
Additional crude oil supplies arrive by rail from several western states, particularly North Dakota, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.

From CA.gov:

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Heavy Vs Light

What Are California Refineries Optimized For?

First, some background from wiki, starting with definitions. The clear cut definition of light and heavy crude varies because the classification is based more on practical grounds than theoretical.

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Definitions