PDVSA and Ancap to Expand La Teja Refinery in Uruguay

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, together with its Uruguayan counterpart Ancap, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in July 2006 towards a 20% expansion of La Teja Refinery’s (Montevideo, Uruguay) current 50,000 b/d processing capacity.

The two companies have been able to complete the detailed engineering plans for the expansion of the Uruguayan refinery and thus have realized that this project has the capacity to reach a total investment value of nearly $600 million. This plant will process heavy crude oil from the Marlim Oil Field (Campos Basin, Brazil) to produce diesel fuel for Uruguay’s domestic market and at the same time provide exports to Argentina. La Teja Refinery’s deep conversion capacity will facilitate the supply of Venezuelan crude oil to the Uruguayan market. According to Sergio Lattanzio, Ancap’s CEO, construction of the expansion is to begin during the first quarter of 2007 and will take approximately five years to complete.

Petrobras and Ancap

On July 5th 2006, the Mines and Energy Ministers of Brazil, Silas Rondeau, and of Uruguay, Jorge Leptra, signed a memorandum of understanding to advance the energy integration processes between the two countries. There is a vast array of projects developing between these two countries. Petrobras negotiating with Ancap to increase conversion capacity at the La Teja refinery in order to process Brazilian heavy oil. For details, view related July 14, 2006, news article: Petrobras’ Future Investments.

Industrial Information Resources (IIR) is a Marketing Information Service company that has been doing business for over 22 years. IIR is respected as the leader in providing comprehensive market intelligence pertaining to the industrial processing, heavy manufacturing, and energy-related industries throughout the world.