Prerana Saha
Assistant General Manager
Engineers India Limited
Participates in
TECHNICAL PROGRAMME | Energy Fuels and Molecules
Pathways to Net-Zero Refining and Petrochemical Facilities
Forum 16 | Digital Poster Plaza 3
30
April
10:00
12:00
UTC+3
Emissions of CO2 globally has been brought into attention in recent years through declarations by international leaders, and also by industrialists committing themselves to substantial reductions.
Owing to its role as a provider of transport fuels and chemicals, the refining sector produces an estimated 478,000 metric tons of CO2 every year, second only to power plants as a producer in CO2 emissions.
A refinery is generally a joint production process system. Nearly all of the energy consumed is fossil fuel for combustion; thus the petroleum refining industry is a significant source of GHG emissions (CO2, CH4, etc).
Due to the complex nature of the process involved, while it converts heavier oils into high quality oil products, fuels and other high value products, it also provides a way to curb CO2 emissions.
The study uses linear programming (LP) model to assess the impact of CO2 emissions on a refinery’s operational configuration, and energy using strategies. In the case of refineries, which usually operate on complex energy systems, CO2 emissions introduce an additional factor to the complexity of the energy costs reduction challenge.
Some of the areas in which a charge for CO2 emissions can drive changes in
refinery operation, and even in the actual configuration selected for the refinery, may involve the following:
Where potential schemes for reducing CO2 are being considered, the LP model can be used in an investment-modelling mode to look at the viability of these schemes and how that viability varies with emissions pricing. Where a number of potential schemes have been developed, the LP can be used to identify the best scheme to produce a given reduction on CO2, or it can be used to identify the optimum level of reduction at a given CO2 price.
The evaluation has been done for a typical existing refinery, with cracking and hydrotreating units. The refinery undergoes an increase in crude throughput and thus new secondary processing and residue upgradation units are planned to be installed.
The impact of carbon emission cost is then studied on the expansion refining scheme. It is envisaged that the optimization of the capacities of existing process units, fuel switching, crude substitution, relaxation in product specifications can lead to low CO2 emissions.
This paper concludes that with high dependence on the use of crude oil, suitable optimization of oil refineries during their planning stage must be done in order to mitigate their contribution to global warming.
Owing to its role as a provider of transport fuels and chemicals, the refining sector produces an estimated 478,000 metric tons of CO2 every year, second only to power plants as a producer in CO2 emissions.
A refinery is generally a joint production process system. Nearly all of the energy consumed is fossil fuel for combustion; thus the petroleum refining industry is a significant source of GHG emissions (CO2, CH4, etc).
Due to the complex nature of the process involved, while it converts heavier oils into high quality oil products, fuels and other high value products, it also provides a way to curb CO2 emissions.
The study uses linear programming (LP) model to assess the impact of CO2 emissions on a refinery’s operational configuration, and energy using strategies. In the case of refineries, which usually operate on complex energy systems, CO2 emissions introduce an additional factor to the complexity of the energy costs reduction challenge.
Some of the areas in which a charge for CO2 emissions can drive changes in
refinery operation, and even in the actual configuration selected for the refinery, may involve the following:
- Fuel substitution
- Crude substitution
- Hydrogen production
- Residue upgrading
Where potential schemes for reducing CO2 are being considered, the LP model can be used in an investment-modelling mode to look at the viability of these schemes and how that viability varies with emissions pricing. Where a number of potential schemes have been developed, the LP can be used to identify the best scheme to produce a given reduction on CO2, or it can be used to identify the optimum level of reduction at a given CO2 price.
The evaluation has been done for a typical existing refinery, with cracking and hydrotreating units. The refinery undergoes an increase in crude throughput and thus new secondary processing and residue upgradation units are planned to be installed.
The impact of carbon emission cost is then studied on the expansion refining scheme. It is envisaged that the optimization of the capacities of existing process units, fuel switching, crude substitution, relaxation in product specifications can lead to low CO2 emissions.
This paper concludes that with high dependence on the use of crude oil, suitable optimization of oil refineries during their planning stage must be done in order to mitigate their contribution to global warming.
