GHU Frequently Asked Questions

How does Genoil see the heavy/light oil price spread in the future? As more and more refineries have the ability to process heavy oil, won’t this decrease the spread?

The spread in price between light-sweet crude oil and heavy-sour crude oil is not that critical for Genoil. Heavy oil is becoming the name of the game and, in fact, the only game in town once all the producers have depleted their easier to extract light sweet crude. We know from technical discussions with independent refinery engineers that the extremely low CAPEX of a GHU® facility makes it more attractive to build three (3), 30,000 bpd GHU® plants in front of an existing 100,000 bpd refinery rather than having to upgrade the existing refinery to process heavier crude (in order to get the same yield of premium-priced transportation fuel).

Alternatively, existing refineries can pipe their heavy bottoms into a single GHU® plant to be upgraded for further refining into higher value products. It keeps coming back to the end-consumer. These consumers don't care and they don’t want to know anything about the oil business except the connection between the gas station pump and their car's fuel tank. Even though NYMEX has controlled the price of crude oil since March 30, 1983 with their speculation, the little guy (consumer) controls the demand for gasoline and in doing so, it is the consumer who will create the shortages and drive the price at the pump.

Is Genoil promoting the environmental aspects of the GHU? Cokers vent pollutants into the atmosphere as they process heavy oil. The coke produced is either dumped in landfills or burned just as coal is which is very environmentally unfriendly. When the GHU processes heavy oil and gasifies the residue to produce Hydrogen, is this more environmentally friendly than how a coker processes heavy oil?  Pound-for-pound, coking - the process of extracting additional liquid and gaseous products from heavy "bottom of the barrel" type oil - is the most energy intensive of any operation in a modern oil refinery. Large amounts of energy are required to heat the heavier, poor-quality crude oil and petroleum residuum in order to “crack” the heavy hydrocarbon molecules into lighter, more valuable products.

Today's refineries must contend with increasing amounts of unwanted sulfur, metals and other impurities in crude oil feedstocks. These impurities often remain trapped in the coke, degrading its value and creating disposal problems.

The Genoil process for desulfurization and upgrading of heavy, sour crude oil is a much “greener” process. The Genoil GHU®: 1) occupies a smaller footprint, physically and environmentally, than a conventional heavy oil refinery, 2) operates at lower pressures and temperatures using less energy, 3) removes over 90% of sulfur, 4) produces no coke, and 5) allows the conventional refinery to receive higher quality feedstock with less impurities.