Capstone has an established history and expertise in trading crude oil. We source barrels throughout North America and have access to all key crude grades, allowing our customers to access the most appropriate market with the most accurate data.
Capstone creates and captures value throughout the supply chain via our established relationships, extensive logistical expertise and blending capabilities. Our experience and understanding of oil markets, combined with our understanding of both macro and micro trends, ensures both Capstone and customer economic hurdles are achieved.
Crude oil is a naturally occurring mixture of liquid hydrocarbons. When it is processed through an oil refinery, it can be transformed into a wide variety of highly valued liquid petroleum products such as gasoline and diesel. The value of these products comes from their high energy density and liquid state, which makes them ideal as transportation fuels
There are a wide variety of different properties that are used to distinguish between crude grades. The most common characteristics used to identify the quality of a crude are its API gravity and its sulfur content.
Capstone is strategically developing our natural gas activities to reflect the growing North American gas market. Our focus is on the North American wholesale market, where we have developed a number of services to support large scale customers.
Natural gas is a gas composed primarily of methane but typically with some ethane as well. Most natural gas comes directly from upstream oil and gas wells, not from refining. In refining, natural gas is often purchased and used as a refinery fuel and as a feedstock to make hydrogen in the hydrogen plant.
Through our established logistics expertise, we actively purchase, sell, and transport NGLs throughout North America. Our primary focus is ethane, propane, and butane. The NGL production out of Alberta is rapidly growing, and Capstone is well positioned to take advantage of this opportunity.
NGLs are liquids separated from natural gas as the gas is processed either in the field or at gathering points before moving to market. NGLs are a mixture of light hydrocarbons including ethane, propane, butane, and light naphtha. The composition of NGLs varies. NGLs are typically transported to a fractionation plant for separation into the different components.
Condensate is a mixture of light liquid hydrocarbons, similar to a very light (high API) crude oil. It is typically separated out of a natural gas stream at the point of production (field separation) when the temperature and pressure of the gas is dropped to atmospheric conditions. Condensate is mostly composed of NGLs and naphtha range material, and has an API from 45 to 70+. Once separated from natural gas, condensate is generally treated like a crude oil. It can be blended with other heavier crude streams or sent to market directly by pipeline or tanker.
Capstone integrates all the elements of competitive pricing, logistics, storage and product optimization, and we have long standing relationships with a number of refiners and marketers. Through these relationships we purchase, sell, and transport gasoline, distillate, and naphtha.
Gasoline is a fuel made from crude oil and other petroleum liquids. Gasoline is mainly used as an engine fuel in vehicles.
Distillate is a general classification for one of the petroleum fractions produced in conventional distillation operations. It includes diesel fuels and fuel oil
Naphtha is a broad term referring to distillation fractions and other intermediates in the gasoline boiling range. The liquids, which differ slightly in their chemical structures and boiling points, have various applications in the refining process - the main one as a feedstock for gasoline and the manufacture of olefins by the petrochemical industry.
Capstone has expertise in a number of feed stocks for biodiesel plants such as canola, soy, animal fat, and cooking oil. Through our distillate network we are able to leverage this understanding to capitalize on purchasing, selling and transporting biodiesel.
Biodiesel is a clean burning renewable fuel made using natural vegetable oils and fats and is made through a chemical process which converts oils and fats into fatty acid methyl esters and is intended to be used as a replacement for petroleum diesel fuel, or can be blended with petroleum diesel fuel in any proportion.
