Factors driving refinery CO2 intensity, with allocation into products

Background and scope Attempts to develop adequate allocation methods for CO2 emissions from petroleum products have been reported in the literature. The common features in those studies are the use of energy, mass, and/or market prices as parameters to allocate the emissions to individual products. The crude barrel is changing, as are refinery complexities and the severity of conversion to gasoline or diesel leading to changes in the emissions intensity of refining. This paper estimates the consequences for CO2 emissions at refineries of allowing these parameters to vary.