HOUSTON, TEXAS (Pietro D. Pitts, Energy Analytics Institute, 4.Jun.2025, Words: 343) — In the 1990s, international oil companies (IOCs) from Chevron Corporation and ExxonMobil Corporation to Equinor (then Statoil) led construction of 4 integrated projects to upgrade Venezuela’s extra-heavy crude oil (EHCO) located in the country’s vast Orinoco heavy oil belt, also known as the Faja, into a lighter synthetic crude (syncrude) for export.
These exports were destined primarily for the US market, where refineries along the US Gulf Coast were built specifically to receive this syncrude.
