Petrobras’s REDUC refinery boosts asphalt sales

Petróleo Brasileiro SA has achieved a 7-year record for monthly asphalt sales from its 239,000-b/d Duque de Caxias (REDUC) refinery in the Baixada Fluminense area of Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro state.

During June, REDUC sold 16,773 tonnes of asphalt, an increase of 42.5% compared with May and 120.8% higher than in June 2019, Petrobras said.

This is the refinery’s highest monthly asphalt sales since 2013, according to the operator.

Petrobras said the monthly sales record for REDUC’s asphalt production comes amid ongoing work by the company’s commercial department to expand the refinery’s participation in serving the market to capitalize on asphalt margins.

“We have implemented commercial measures to increase the product's attractiveness, in complete alignment with REDUC's production capacity, in order to increase [the refinery’s contributed value] to Petrobras's [financial] results,” said Luciano Monteiro, manager of REDUC’s commercial business.

Brazil’s third largest refinery and equipped with the most complexity within Petrobras’s refining system, REDUC produces three types of asphalt—including PAC 30/45 and PAC 50/70 petroleum asphaltic cement, as well as MC 30 cutback asphalt—with an average delivery of 762 tonnes/day to market, the operator said.

REDUC’s June 2020 asphalt sales record came despite a June 15 fire—caused by a leak in a fuel oil pump—that broke out in one of the refinery’s distillation units (OGJ Online, June 16, 2020).