Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has highlighted the results of the scientific institution within the Cupet business system, which broke the taboo that our high-density, high-viscosity oil could not be processed.
The Cuban president pointed out that it has been demonstrated “that in the country we have the capacity for science, innovation, and to address complex problems from a scientific and innovative perspective.”
A technology for using domestic crude oil, developed by the Center for Petroleum Research (Ceinpet) and based on thermoconversion, has shattered the myth that Cuba’s high-density, high-viscosity oil could not be processed using domestic solutions.
The scientific breakthrough, the result of years of work by the center, which is part of the Cuban Petroleum Union (Cupet), was highlighted by the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, at the April session of the National Innovation Council (CNI).
With this, the Cuban leader pointed out, “we broke a long-held belief, a taboo that existed in the country, that domestic crude oil could not be refined, that it could not be used for other purposes, and we had practically condemned it to be used directly in a group of thermoelectric plants.”
CUBAN-STYLE ENERGY
Thermal conversion is a process that allows for the improvement of the properties of heavy and extra-heavy crude oil (such as that from the northern oil belt, which is currently the most available and exploited in the country despite its high density, viscosity, and sulfur content) by facilitating the breakdown of some of its more complex compounds through controlled heating.
“It’s a process,” explained engineer Irenaldo Pérez Cardoso, deputy director of Cupet, to the Presidential press group. “It’s basically designed to reduce the viscosity of crude oil without having to mix it with naphtha, a product that has been in short supply due to the intensified blockade, the persecution of fuels since 2019, and now the energy blockade.”
“The thermoconversion technique for treating our heavy crude,” he detailed, “has been under development for years by Ceinpet, and there has been progress in the engineering. Therefore, what we have now presented to the National Innovation Council is the step toward installing a pilot plant at the Sergio Soto refinery in Cabaiguán, Sancti Spíritus.”
“It will be built there to take advantage of the existing conditions of this plant, its facilities, such as water, steam, electricity, and above all, the expertise of its team, which has been processing this crude oil since 2010.
“It will be a pilot plant,” argues the Deputy Director of Cupet, “that will allow us to have all the engineering and data needed to scale up the technology and develop this proprietary innovation, generated by our researchers. This will allow us to build plants in strategic locations to reduce the viscosity of heavy crude.”
The implementation of this innovation also includes a second stage, focused on catalytic development using Cuban laterites; “that is, using our natural resources, to reduce its sulfur content, which is another major challenge for Cuban crude.”
HE WHO SEEKS NAPHTHA, FINDS IT
At the meeting, Cupet specialists also addressed the solutions sought in response to the acute naphtha shortage caused by the energy blockade imposed by the U.S. government.
It is a product of refining imported oil that has historically been used in the country to reduce the viscosity of crude oil and facilitate its extraction and transportation, and whose availability has become –explained the executive– Cupet’s greatest challenge.
The lack of naphtha –he pointed out– forced us to seek solutions, and based on innovative proposals from a group of experts from across the Union, a segregated, lower-viscosity domestic crude oil was taken to the Hermanos Díaz refinery in Santiago de Cuba for processing to obtain this and other products.
As part of the trial, expert engineers from the facility itself and from across the country developed comprehensive protocols for the development and adaptation of the technological systems, which allowed for an initial experimental test run, with positive results.
In this trial, “we achieved a diesel fuel of a quality that is not special diesel, but commercially viable, which will allow us to replace the diesel we use in some drilling processes; we produced naphtha as a viscosity-reducing solvent, which in the first run provided us with 15 days of supply for oil and gas production in Varadero; and we obtained a marketable fuel that we are evaluating for use in the energy industry, in power plants, as well as in the nickel industry.”
“We believe,” summarized the Deputy Director of Cupet, “that these are positive results and an alternative that the country has sought, which the Cuba Petroleum Union, together with the Ministry of Energy and Mines, has fostered, and in which science and innovation have been applied to enhance the use of our resources.”
Among other results, engineer Pérez Cardoso emphasized the success of the country’s strategy to promote innovation in the energy sector, because, he argued, “the most important thing is how to take advantage of our own resources, what our country has.”
YES, THERE ARE ANSWERS FROM SCIENCE AND INNOVATION
The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, reiterated his calls from previous years, emphasizing that, in the face of imperial aggression, energy solutions must be our own, sovereign, and based on science and innovation, taking advantage of both renewable energy sources (solar, wind, biomass, etc.) and domestic crude oil, including increased production and refining.
But, he said, “to my surprise, the issue wasn’t starting research; as they say here, science was already established, research was already underway.” What needed to be done was to organize and coordinate it, and we have seen how, by seeking an opportunity within the crisis, a taboo was broken: the notion that Cuban oil could not be refined.
As a second positive element, the Head of State emphasized that this research—although it involved universities—is the result of a research center within the Cuban business sector, demonstrating their capacity to make scientific contributions.
He reiterated that this has demonstrated “that the country has the capacity for science, for innovation, for addressing complex problems from a science and innovation perspective and finding solutions to strategic problems. This is a mindset we must continue to cultivate so that it permeates all areas of our economy and society, because not all business systems have this mature approach to solving complex problems supported by science and innovation.”
And the third point, he added, is “that this research has been led by business leaders, and by business leaders pursuing doctoral degrees, which is another aspect we highlighted as essential when we designed the Science and Innovation-Based Government Management System.”
“We need to have PhDs in business systems and a critical mass of PhDs in public administration, in the goods and services production sector, so that they can act as a driving force for scientific and innovative development,” he stressed.
IMAGE CREDIT: Author: René Tamayo León | internet@granma.cu / Photo: Estudios Revolución
[ SOURCE: GRANMA ]
