Projected refined product balances in key Latin American countries: A preliminary examination

Over the years, the East-West Center (EWC) has developed considerable expertise in refinery modeling, especially in the area of forecasting product balances for countries, given planned capacity changes, changes in product demand, changes in crude slates, and changes in product specifications. This expertise has been applied on an ongoing basis to the major refiners in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region, along with the US West Coast as region in its own right. Refinery modeling in these three areas has been ongoing for nearly 15 years at the Center, and the tools and information sources are now well developed. To date, the EWC has not applied these tools to Latin America. Although research on Latin America has been an ongoing area of concern at the Center in recent years, the information gathered to date is still not of the level of detail nor quality available for other areas. The modeling efforts undertaken in this report are of a ``baseline`` nature, designed to outline the major issues, attempt a first cut at emerging product balances, and, above all, to elicit commentary from those directly involved in the oil industry in the key countries modeled. Our experience in other regions has shown that it takes a few years dialogue with refiners and government planner in individual countries to develop a reliable database, as well as the insights into operational constraints and practices that make accurate modeling possible. This report is no more than a first step down the road.