There are a number of reasons why certain U.S. refineries might want to include waxy crude oil from Utah’s Uinta Basin in their crude slates — the highly paraffinic oil has a lot of neat qualities. But waxy crude can be a hard sell, mostly because, like bacon fat, it needs to be kept warm to remain in a liquid, flowable state. As a result, the vast majority of the waxy crude produced is driven in insulated tanker trucks to refineries in nearby Salt Lake City. Uinta producers have been making progress of late, however, in sending regular shipments of waxy crude in coiled and insulated railcars to a couple of Gulf Coast refineries. Existing terminals would support incremental growth, and a proposed new railroad out of the basin would allow far larger volumes to be efficiently railed to market. In today’s RBN blog, we continue our look at the prospects for a most unusual type of crude oil.
Canadian crude output is rising, requiring new export routes. As traditional pathways face constraints, the U.S. Rockies—especially the Guernsey, WY hub—are emerging as key corridors for moving Canadian heavy crude to downstream markets, including the Gulf Coast.
By now, many longtime readers of RBN blogs know the basics of Uinta waxy crude as well as they know the Rod Stewart classic behind the title of all our waxy crude blogs. As we said in Part 1 of this series — and in earlier blogs on waxy crude — the heart of Uinta production is Utah’s Duchesne and Uintah counties, which are located more than 100 miles east/southeast of Salt Lake City. The vast majority of the crude produced in the basin is either “black wax” oil with an API gravity of 30 to 34 degrees or “yellow wax” crude with an API gravity of 38 to 44 degrees, making them suitable for blending with a wide range of other crudes to achieve desired feedstock specs. These crudes also have admirably low sulfur content (0.01%), low acid content (TAN, or total acid number, of less than 0.1%), and low metals and nitrogen content, also making them desirable for blending.
We’ve also been driving home the fact that there’s plenty of waxy crude still in the ground, and that Uinta Basin producers have been turning increasingly to horizontal drilling and multi-stage hydraulic fracturing. We’ve heard that since 2016 the use of horizontal laterals of up to two miles and large-scale stimulation in over-pressured areas within the Uinta’s Greater Altamont-Bluebell area (light-green-shaded area in Figure 1) has resulted in favorable initial production (IP) rates and shallow decline curves. Waxy crude is also being produced in the Uinta’s normally pressured Greater Monument Butte and Red Wash areas (tan- and red-shaded areas, respectively). A lot of recent drilling activity and new production has been occurring between the Altamont-Bluebell and Monument Butte areas (dashed red oval).
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About the song
“Da Ya Think I'm Sexy” was written by Rod Stewart, Carmine Appice and Duane Hitchings, and appeared as the first cut on side one of Rod Stewart's ninth solo album, Blondes Have More Fun. Released as a single in November 1978, the song went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Co-writer Duane Hitchings in a 2007 interview said the song “was a spoof on the lounge lizards of the ‘Saturday Night Fever’ days.” As a side note, the late Ian McLagan — Rod Stewart's bandmate and keyboardist in The Faces — hated the song and refused to play it when he was the keyboardist in Stewart’s touring band. He would stand behind his organ with his arms crossed as the band performed the song. He said of the song, “It’s an insult to the mentality of any musician.” Personnel on the record were: Rod Stewart (lead vocals), Gary Grainger and Billy Peek (guitars), Jim Cregan (guitar, backing vocals), Phil Chen (bass, backing vocals), Carmine Appice (drums, backing vocals), Duane Hitchings (keyboards, synthesizer) and Del Newman (string arrangements). Blondes Have More Fun was produced by Tom Dowd. It went to #1 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart and has been certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Sir Rod Stewart — he was knighted in 2016 — is a British singer and songwriter. He was the lead singer in The Jeff Beck Group and The Faces, making two albums with the former and four studio LPs and one live album with The Faces. As a solo artist, Sir Rod has released 31 studio albums, four live albums and 147 singles. He has won one Brit Award, one Grammy Award and an ASCAP Founders Award, and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice — once as a solo artist, and once as a member of The Faces. Stewart has sold more than 100 million records worldwide. He continues to tour and has dates scheduled into December, with stops planned in the U.S., Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece and the UEA.
