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The energy efficiency of crude oil refining in Brazil: A Brazilian refinery plant case

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  • de Lima, Romulo S.
  • Schaeffer, Roberto

Abstract

This article evaluates energy efficiency in Brazilian crude oil refining in comparison with the crude oil refining in the United States between 1930 and 2008. It aims to show that increased refinery complexity reduces the energy consumption of products of high value added. Moreover, the article shows that improvements in energy efficiency result in higher quality products and increased processing of oil. A Brazilian refinery with a capacity of 157,000 barrels per day (kbpd) was modernized in 2008 at a cost of US $1.3 billion. As a result, its capacity increased by 17%, from 157 to 189 kbpd. Its complexity index also rose from 3.2 to 6.8, allowing an improvement in the EII (energy intensity index) from 110% to 93%. In relation to the crude oil processed before being modernized, energy consumption fell from 0.75 to 0.52 MBtu (million British thermal units) per barrel processed. These proceedings show that increases in complexity reduce the energy consumed in the production of final products with high value added, such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

Suggested Citation

  • de Lima, Romulo S. & Schaeffer, Roberto, 2011. "The energy efficiency of crude oil refining in Brazil: A Brazilian refinery plant case," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 3101-3112.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:36:y:2011:i:5:p:3101-3112
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2011.02.056
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    1. Johansson, Daniella & Rootzén, Johan & Berntsson, Thore & Johnsson, Filip, 2012. "Assessment of strategies for CO2 abatement in the European petroleum refining industry," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 375-386.
    2. Hamidreza Hasheminasab & Yaghob Gholipour & Mohammadreza Kharrazi & Dalia Streimikiene, 2018. "Life cycle approach in sustainability assessment for petroleum refinery projects with fuzzy-AHP," Energy & Environment, , vol. 29(7), pages 1208-1223, November.
    3. Silva, J.A.M. & Flórez-Orrego, D. & Oliveira, S., 2014. "An exergy based approach to determine production cost and CO2 allocation for petroleum derived fuels," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 490-495.
    4. Silva, J.A.M. & Oliveira, S., 2014. "An exergy-based approach to determine production cost and CO2 allocation in refineries," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 607-616.
    5. Madjid Tavana & Kaveh Khalili-Damghani & Francisco J. Santos Arteaga & Arousha Hashemi, 2020. "A Malmquist productivity index for network production systems in the energy sector," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 284(1), pages 415-445, January.
    6. Talaei, Alireza & Oni, Abayomi Olufemi & Ahiduzzaman, Mohammed & Roychaudhuri, Pritam Sankar & Rutherford, Jeff & Kumar, Amit, 2020. "Assessment of the impacts of process-level energy efficiency improvement on greenhouse gas mitigation potential in the petroleum refining sector," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    7. Rafael Henrique Mainardes Ferreira & Claudia Tania Picinin, 2018. "Bibliometric analysis for characterization of oil production in Brazilian territory," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 1945-1974, September.

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