実際に動いているもの
Arab Light flows on its own, boils into useful products without cracking, and can be run by an ordinary refinery on any continent. Put next to the Venezuelan route, it shows how much of a supply chain is decided by chemistry rather than by policy.
- 素材
- Crude Oil
- 種類
- Light sour crude, roughly 33° API, moderate sulfur
- 起点
- Saudi Arabia — Ghawar and the eastern Saudi fields
工程ごと、越境地点ごとに
Saudi Arabia · Eastern Province 保管者 Saudi Aramco (国営生産者)
Out of the reservoir under its own pressure
Conventional wells, with water injected to maintain reservoir pressure. The crude flows without heating or dilution.
なぜここか: Same as anywhere: the oil is where the oil is.
Saudi Arabia · Abqaiq 保管者 Saudi Aramco (国営生産者)
Stabilisation, and nothing else
Gas and hydrogen sulfide are separated out and the crude is stabilised for shipping. No diluent, no upgrader, no coker.
残りはどうなったか: The associated gas is not waste — it feeds the petrochemical industry and the power that runs the whole operation.
なぜここか: Stabilisation always happens close to the field. That it is ALL that happens is the point of this journey.
Saudi Arabia · Ras Tanura 保管者 Shipowners and buyers (トレーダー)
Straight onto a VLCC
Loaded and sailed. Most cargoes are sold on term contracts to refiners who have taken the same grade for decades.
なぜここか: Ras Tanura is the outlet. The vulnerability of this journey is not the refinery — it is the 40 km-wide strait the tanker sails through.
South Korea · Ulsan, Rotterdam, Houston — the buyer's choice 保管者 Refiner (精製業者)
Any competent refinery will take it
Atmospheric distillation splits the barrel; a hydrotreater removes sulfur; a reformer raises the octane of the naphtha. No deep conversion is required.
残りはどうなったか: Volume comes out slightly HIGHER than it went in — cracking and reforming produce lighter, less dense molecules. Refiners call it processing gain.
なぜここか: Nowhere in particular, and that is the whole lesson: because the crude is easy, the buyer can be anyone.
South Korea · Refinery gate 保管者 Fuel and petrochemical buyers (製造業者)
Fuel, and the feedstock for plastics
Petrol, diesel and jet fuel, plus naphtha that goes to a steam cracker to become ethylene and the plastics that follow from it.
なぜここか: Refineries are built next to the demand, or next to a port that reaches it.
これは計算例である。公表された標準的な歩留まりと回収率を用いて、明示された出発量を追うものであり、比率は検証可能だが、特定の荷物の記録ではない。経路に関する事実——どの国を経由するか、どのような工程を経るか、なぜその素材を他の場所では処理できないか——は公開情報から編集している。