How Oil and Gas companies can reduce their carbon footprint
Reduction in self-emissions
- Methane leakage, flaring, and venting must all be eliminated.
- Increase the use of carbon capture and storage, as well as their research and deployment.
- Change the fuel and increase the energy efficiency of your activities.
- To offer low-carbon goods, use lower-carbon feedstocks.
- Collaborate with everyone in the supply chain.
- Increase your ability to measure emissions at a fine level.
Reduction in consumption-related emissions
Initiatives to reduce the industry’s carbon impact can be quite beneficial.
However, emissions from fuels burned by users and customers provide an even greater and more difficult problem.
Scope 3 emissions account for 75-80 percent of the 35 gigatonnes of emissions created yearly from the lifetime of oil and gas products.
Experts in the industry and regulators are still debating the definition, bounds, and questions of how to account for scope 3 emissions and how to distribute the financial burden.
What are the options for upstream operators?
Changing the source of energy
To give a cost-effective alternative to diesel fuel, one oil and gas business is adopting on-site renewable-power generating.
The firm not only decreased emissions but also broke even on its investment in five years by replacing generators with a solar PV and battery system.
Connecting onshore or nearshore rigs and platforms to the core grid, rather than relying on decentralised diesel generation, might also be beneficial.
Electrifying apparatus
To support separation units, one business replaced gas boilers with electric steam-production systems, which included high-pressure storage for nocturnal steam delivery.
In less than ten years, the project will pay for itself. In many cases, there is already a compelling commercial rationale for combining solar and gas to replace traditional boilers on strictly financial grounds.
What options are available to downstream operators
Efficiencies in energy
Of course, efficiency is important in all aspects of the business, but innovative downstream-specific technology may make a significant impact.
In refineries, for example, waste-heat-recovery technology and medium-temperature heat pumps minimise the amount of primary energy consumed in distillation.
By estimating its needed steam consumption hour by hour and putting this into a thermodynamic model to estimate the required requirements for replacement equipment, one corporation saved millions in capital expenditures.
High-temperature electric cracking
Several pilot projects in refining are using electric coils instead of fuel gas to supply heat.
The technology is still in its infancy and is limited in scope.
Furthermore, the economics are affected by the cost of electricity vs gas, as well as the alternatives for selling the fuel gas.
These economics improve if the investment is timed to coincide with the natural investment cycle, allowing for more capital expenditures, and, of course, provided electricity can be acquired or generated at a low cost.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we have discussed how Oil & Gas companies can reduce their carbon footprint which includes reduction in self-emissions as well as reduction in consumption-related emissions.
We also talked about what are the options for upstream operators as well as what options are available to downstream operators.
Business Director
A graduate (Business) from KDU, Jason Tan, is the current Business Director (Sales) for MGS Icestorm and has been associated with the company for the past 10 years.
With over 13 years in the shipping industry, he has had a significant contribution to Malaysia’s oil and gas industry in the engine and boat supply sector.
His expertise includes managing offshore catering business, offshore reefer containers, AI technology, offshore gas tanks, A60 pressurized cabins, etc. His contributions have helped establish MGS, in partnership (joint venture) with Thermo King and Honeywell to produce state of art Offshore Reefer Container products.