A predictable outcome of the recent linkage of oil supply from PDVSA to oil hungry Petrobras (needs import 20% of its crude demand over next several years) would be a JV on an upgrader installation. And especially since Petrobras has its own coker technology much like PDVSA other US upgrader partners ConocoPhillips, ChevronTexaco & ExxonMobil.
 
The article sites a 200 MBD production rate online by 2009, given past projects evolution that would call for a upgrade coker installed by 2010 or 2011.
 
Regards
Charlie Randall
 
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Peter Howard Wertheim
OGJ correspondent RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec. 12 — Brazil’s state-run Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) and Venezuela’s Petroleos de Venezuela SA plan to jointly build a heavy-oil upgrading plant in Venezuela that would cost about $1 billion, Petrobras announced.  
The plant would convert heavy oil from Venezuela’s Orinoco belt into crude that can be processed at a refinery to be built as another joint project in northeastern Brazil, said Petrobras International Director Nestor Cervero.
 
The upgrader would treat production from a jointly operated field that is to start up at a rate of as much as 200,000 b/d in 2009, Cervero said