Carbon intensity of global crude oil refining and mitigation potential

Abstract

Changing market demand and increasing environmental regulations challenge the refining industry to shift crude slates and reconfigure production processes while reducing emissions. Yet sellers and buyers remain unaware of the carbon footprint of individual marketable networks, and each crude oil has different specifications and is processed in different destination markets. Here we show the global refining carbon intensity at country level and crude level are 13.9–62.1 kg of CO₂-equivalent (CO₂e) per barrel and 10.1–72.1 kgCO₂e per barrel, respectively, with a volume-weighted average of 40.7 kgCO₂e per barrel (equivalent to 7.3 gCO₂e MJ⁻¹) and energy use of 606 MJ per barrel. We used bottom-up engineering-based refinery modelling on crude oils representing 93% of 2015 global refining throughput. On the basis of projected oil consumption under 2 °C scenarios, the industry could save 56–79 GtCO₂e to 2100 by targeting primary emission sources. These results provide guidance on climate-sensitive refining choices and future investment in emissions mitigation technologies.