Ecopave Australia™ through its research has shown that there is absolutely no difference if one chose to use the waste residue bitumen supply from the distillation bottoms that come from heavy grade crude oil source or from light crude oil, the end waste residue material is almost identical. The reason why the oil refining industry appears to prefer to use the waste residue from heavy crude oil to manufacture bitumen is because they produce larger quantities of it i.e, the residue (residuum) from Venezuelan Heavy grade oil produces and supplies around 20% - 60% bitumen residuum and is cheaper to produce and supply whereas i.e, Nigerian light crude only produces around 1% of residue.
The global supply of residue bitumen appear not so much a case about shortage due to lack of availability, but more about the economics, about 30% of the world crude oil is heavy grade which is more difficult and more expensive to extract (drill) due to its higher viscosity, but this is offset by the 70% of the more easily available and extractable low viscosity light crude and even though the oil only produces around 1% of residuum there is a lot more of it available. In other words every barrel of crude oil extracted weather heavy or light produces residuum which is suitable for bitumen manufacture this includes the waxy type crude oil. The possible reason as to why the oil refining industry has always appeared to maintain that it can only use 10% of the 30% globally available heavy grade crude residuum (bottoms) for bitumen manufacture, may not be because of scarcity of supply, but because the 10% is a non waxy oil (i.e, Venezuelan) and is therefore cheaper to process. In other words it appears that all the residuum that come from the processing (refining) of the 30% globally available heavy grade crude oil residuum is suitable for the manufacture of road grade bitumen, this knowledge has ironically already been around since the 1980s (Ecopave Australia).
The Industrialized nations discharge around twenty thousand tons of harmful greenhouse gas emissions into our atmosphere every second, the majority of these fumes are derived from burning fossil fuels. Count down to a global climate disaster....
The global supply of residue bitumen appear not so much a case about shortage due to lack of availability, but more about the economics, about 30% of the world crude oil is heavy grade which is more difficult and more expensive to extract (drill) due to its higher viscosity, but this is offset by the 70% of the more easily available and extractable low viscosity light crude and even though the oil only produces around 1% of residuum there is a lot more of it available. In other words every barrel of crude oil extracted weather heavy or light produces residuum which is suitable for bitumen manufacture this includes the waxy type crude oil. The possible reason as to why the oil refining industry has always appeared to maintain that it can only use 10% of the 30% globally available heavy grade crude residuum (bottoms) for bitumen manufacture, may not be because of scarcity of supply, but because the 10% is a non waxy oil (i.e, Venezuelan) and is therefore cheaper to process. In other words it appears that all the residuum that come from the processing (refining) of the 30% globally available heavy grade crude oil residuum is suitable for the manufacture of road grade bitumen, this knowledge has ironically already been around since the 1980s (Ecopave Australia).
The Industrialized nations discharge around twenty thousand tons of harmful greenhouse gas emissions into our atmosphere every second, the majority of these fumes are derived from burning fossil fuels. Count down to a global climate disaster....
Residue Bitumen Supply Story
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