Caracas Chronicles

A reader notes that another point in favor of Orimulsion is that it doesn’t count towards OPEC production quotas.

This New York Times article gives you a feel for what the Orimulsion buzz was like…back in 1990:

Using the label ”liquid coal,” Venezuela started marketing a bitumen and water emulsion this year that is liquid and easy to handle like oil but priced like coal – a cheap and stable commodity…

After two years of successful tests in power plants in Canada, Britain and Japan, the world power generating industry appears to be optimistic about the product.

…

Depending on contracts, Orimulsion is sold at $8 to $9.50 a ton, or about $1.10 to $1.30 a barrel. In contrast, heavy fuel oil is now selling for about $19 a barrel, sharply up from $10 a barrel at the end of July

…

”Once the Middle East crisis hit, my phone started to ring,” said Blair A. Kennedy, Orimulsion’s project manager for the New Brunswick Power Company, in a telephone interview. After test-burning 1.1 million barrels of the fuel, the Canadian utility is negotiating a 20-year supply contract with the Venezuelans.

Venezuela is the only country to produce the fuel commercially, but plant managers do not appear to be overly worried about becoming dependent on a single supplier.

Think they’ll be so blasé next time?