The oil and gas industry is responsible for 6% of total global CO2 emissions, from exploration to downstream petrochemical production and account for another 50% when including the use of its products. Thus, this industry has a significant role in realising the target of net “zero” CO2 emissions by 2070, essential to limit global warming to 1.8 °C [2], as introduced under the Paris agreement. Currently, the interactions of an extensive set of individual and combined CO2 mitigation measures along the value chain and over time are poorly assessed. This paper aims to assess a bottom-up CO2 mitigation potential for a complex refinery, including portfolios of combined mitigation options, considering synergies, overlap, and interactions over time for more realistic insight into the costs and constraints of the mitigation portfolio. A total of 40 measures were identified, covering a wide range of technologies such as energy efficiency measures (EEM), carbon capture and storage (CCS), bio-oil co-processing, blue and green hydrogen (BH2, GH2), green electricity import, and electrification of refining processes linked to the transition of the Colombian energy systems. Five deployment pathways were assessed to achieve different specific targets: 1-base case scenario, 2-less effort, 3-maximum CO2 avoidance, 4-INDC, and 5-measures below 200 €/t CO2. Two scenarios (3 and 5) gave the highest GHG emission reduction potentials of 106% and 98% of refining process emissions, respectively. Although significant, it represent only around 13% of the life-cycle emissions when including upstream and final-use emissions of the produced fuels. Bio-oil co-processing options account for around 60% of the mitigation options portfolio, followed by CCS (23%), green electricity (7%) and green H2 (6%). The devised methodological approach in this study can also be applied to assess other energy-intensive industrial complexes and shed light on the bias for estimating CO2 mitigation potentials, especially when combining different mitigation options. This is turn is vital to define optimal transition pathways of industrial complexes.@en

The use of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) is a promising alternative for reducing the cost of carbon capture and storage (CCS). In this study the techno-economic potential of integrated CCS-EOR projects for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the Colombian oil industry is estimated. For this purpose, a source-sink matching process is carried out, including CO2 capture potentials in sources from the petroleum, cement, power generation, and bioethanol industries, as well as from the CO2 storage in suitable oil fields for EOR. The results indicate that a total of 142 million tons of carbon dioxide (MtCO2) could be stored, while delivering 465 MMbbl through five CCS-EOR projects in four clusters identified around the country. The levelised cost for capture ranged between 12–209 €/tCO2, followed by the cost of CO2 during EOR operations with a variation of 24–59 €/tCO2, and finally the CO2 transport, from 1 €/tCO2 to 23 €/tCO2. The CO2 mitigation potential of CCS-EOR represents 25 % of the forecasted oil industry emissions in Colombia for the period of 2025–2040. As compared to the intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) target set by the Colombian government, CCS-EOR projects could contribute 7 % of the total accumulated emissions reductions by 2040.@en

The oil industry needs to reduce CO2 emissions across the entire lifecycle of fossil fuels to meet environmental regulations and societal requirements and to sustain its business. With this goal in mind, this study aims to evaluate the CO2 mitigation potential of several bio-oil co-processing pathways in an oil refinery. Techno-economic analysis was conducted on different pathways and their greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation potentials were compared. Thirteen pathways with different bio-oils, including vegetable oil (VO), fast pyrolysis oil (FPO), hydro-deoxygenated oil (HDO), catalytic pyrolysis oil (CPO), hydrothermal liquefaction oil (HTLO), and Fischer–Tropsch fuels, were analyzed. However, no single pathway could be presented as the best option. This would depend on the criteria used and the target of the co-processing route. The results obtained indicated that up to 15% of the fossil-fuel output in the refinery could be replaced by biofuel without major changes in the core activities of the refinery. The consequent reduction in CO2 emissions varied from 33% to 84% when compared with pure equivalent fossil fuels replaced (i.e., gasoline and diesel). Meanwhile, the production costs varied from 17 to 31€/GJ (i.e., 118–213$/bbleq). Co-processing with VO resulted in the lowest overall performance among the options that were evaluated while co-processing HTLO in the hydrotreatment unit and FPO in the fluid catalytic cracking unit showed the highest potential for CO2 avoidance (69% of refinery CO2 emissions) and reduction in CO2 emissions (84% compared to fossil fuel), respectively. The cost of CO2 emissions avoided for all of the assessed routes was in the range of €99–651 per tCO2.@en

The oil and gas sector represents 39% of the world's total industrial final energy consumption, and contributes to around 37% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This study investigates the potential for improvements in energy efficiency, and their implications for CO2 abatement, in the Colombian oil industry value chain. It also assesses the potential cost of conserved energy and mitigated CO2-eq. A bottom-up approach was used to identify energy efficiency measures based on an assessment of specific operational data at the process unit level. In total, 20 measures and technologies were identified and applied in 48 cases throughout the chain, representing energy savings of 15.8 PJ and GHG savings of 0.75 Mt CO2-eq per year. This accounts for 25% and 19% of the total energy consumption and GHG emissions, respectively. Ninety-six percent of the total energy savings come from measures that are already cost-effective and could be implemented in the short term. The results of this study offer a better understanding of the critical stages for energy and GHG savings potentials, as well as investment cost and revenue from a full value chain perspective, based on operational data processing.@en

CCS is considered a primary strategy to curb CO2 emissions. In many models, CCS is an essential technology to meet the 2◦C target [1]. Drastically reducing GHG emissions in the oil and gas industry will be needed to reach the 2◦C target as this industry is one of the five most energy and GHG intensive sectors [2]. The implementation of CCS technologies has been widely studied for the refining stage of the oil value chain. According to Berghout et al. [3], between 80 to 90% of GHG emissions in the refining industry could be reduced using CCS. However, the cost involved for its implementation, make it an unattractive pathway. CO2-EOR is currently a promising alternative to reduce CCS costs [4], and would be able to produce an oil with low-associated emissions during its recovery. This paper aims to estimate the techno-economic potential of CO2-EOR for reducing GHG emissions in the Colombian oil industry. For this purpose, the supply and demand of CO2 is studied by including the CO2 capture potential of the oil industry, cement, power generation and bioethanol, as well as the storage potential of CO2 through the oil recovery miscible process. The state-owned oil company Ecopetrol S.A. was taken as a case study, which represent the oil value chain in Colombia, with about 70% of crude oil produced and 100% of oil transported and refined in the country. A total of 193 Mt CO2 between 2025 and 2040 could be stored through CO2-EOR. As the projected emissions of the oil and gas industry in Colombia from 2010 to 2040 are estimated at 570 Mt CO2 [11], this is equivalent to a potential 34% reduction in CO2 emissions. This mitigation represents approximately 20% of the total reduction under the INDC target for the period 2025 to 2030.@en