While naphtha production at Ecopetrol's Reficar refinery appears to have come of age, with several virgin naphtha cargoes seen exported from the refinery in recent months, gasoline units at Reficar continue to experience growing pains.
The $8.1 billion Reficar refinery, which has been ramping up production since its inauguration in October, is offering 120,000 barrels of RON 87 gasoline with 3,000 ppm sulfur in the spot market, trading sources said Thursday.
Reficar is designed to produce gasoline with a 50 ppm maximum sulfur content, and this gasoline specification is above typical Latin America gasoline sulfur specifications.
According to one trading source, the company has been looking to quietly unload this 3,000 ppm sulfur batch since early April.
"Maybe some blender buys it real cheap and dilutes it little by little," a Latin America trading source said Thursday. "Hard to say."
It is not unusual for newly commissioned refineries to produce product batches with unusual specifications, as engineering teams work to fine-tune production, according to a refining source.
"They wouldn't have planned to make 3,000 ppm material," a second gasoline trading source said.
Last November, Reficar made its first shipment of exported fuels, sending 200,000 barrels of virgin naphtha and 50,000 barrels of A-1 jet fuel to Caribbean and US East Coast buyers.
It has been offering 200,000-barrel clips of virgin naphtha in the market since then.
