BOGOTA: New production units at Colombia’s expanded Cartagena Refinery, which has been upgraded to become the most modern oil processing facility of its kind in Latin America, began churning out petroleum products earlier this week.
Refineria de Cartagena SA, or Reficar, a unit of state-controlled oil company Ecopetrol and operator of the refinery, said in a statement Tuesday that the fuels being produced by those new units include diesel, petroleum naphtha, liquefied petroleum gas and jet fuel.
The first distilled products were produced with a supply of 90,000 barrels per day of crude, although the company expects that amount to increase to 165,000 bpd by March 2016.
This initial fuel production comes two weeks after the refinery, located in the Caribbean city of Cartagena, officially began operating.
Most of the products obtained in the first few weeks of operations will be exported, since some of the fuels, including diesel, still must be blended to final specifications for domestic distribution, Reficar said.
The refinery, which began operating on Oct. 21, could lead to an additional 1 percent increase in Colombian gross domestic product growth and an additional 10 percent jump in industrial GDP, President Juan Manuel Santos said then.
The project to expand the refinery, which now occupies an area of 140 hectares (345 acres), cost slightly more than $8 billion.
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