Each and every production region in the U.S. has its own unique geology, geography and hydrocarbon assets, but few, if any, are more unusual than the Uinta Basin in northeastern Utah. Physically isolated from all refining centers except Salt Lake City, the region boasts enormous reserves of waxy crude oil that’s been made accessible at a very low cost per barrel via horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. While Uinta Basin crude looks, smells and feels like shoe polish, it has many characteristics that refiners want, including medium-to-high API gravity and very low sulfur, acid and metal content. There are two snags to expanding production, though: waxy crude poses major transport challenges, and Salt Lake City refineries can only use so much of the stuff. So if Uinta Basin producers want to increase production by much, they’ll need to develop cost-effective ways to move large volumes of their waxy crude to faraway markets like the Gulf and West coasts. Today, we continue a series on the prospects for expanding waxy-oil output with a review of Uinta Basin producers and their customers in the close-by “City of the Saints.”
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