Energy Efficiency in Oil Production

Thermodynamics has traditionally been defined as the study of heat and work. The steam engine’s invention in the nineteenth century was closely related to Newcomen’s discovery, and it developed at the same time as the Industrial Revolution. This succinct historical synopsis highlights the close relationship between science and technology development; it’s a great example of how scientific bases encourage and assist engineering. An industrialized, globalized world that is insatiably hungry for energy nonetheless faces many of the same problems, concerns, and paradigms as it did in the past.

The exergy of a system in a defined state is the maximum amount of theoretically useful work that can be obtained when the system interacts with its environment in order to go from the defined state to mutual thermodynamic equilibrium, with the heat interaction performed exclusive heat with the environment. This led to the development of its etymology. The word “exergy” comes from the Greek language. It is formed by combining the prefix ex-, which means “external” or “outwards,” with the segment ergon, which can represent either “force” or “work.” In other words, the definition of exergy is “force out” or “force that can be extracted.”

Energy Return on Investment (EROI) is a measure of the quality of various fuels, which calculates the ratio between the energy provided by a particular fuel to society and the energy invested in capturing and delivering that energy in its final or useful form, depending on the boundary of analysis.

A petroleum and gas production unit consists of a wide variety of components and deals with different forms of energy, such as chemical energy from fuels, electrical energy, and thermal energy for heating or cooling.

Before diving into oil production facilities and identifying ways to make them more energy efficient, the reader may ask himself the following questions: (1) “What is energy efficiency in an oil production facility?” (2) “What should be optimized in your production processes?” (3) “How should we measure its performance?” Such questions are apparently simple, however, certainly, experienced professionals will have different answers. To start the chapter and have a more homogeneous view among readers, the first subsection of this chapter provides the concept of energy efficiency in oil production facilities to be used in this book. Next, we present the reader with basic information about oil production facilities and their production processes, to gradually provide information related to the main theme of the book, energy efficiency. Strangely, it is common to see professionals relating the increase in energy efficiency to the increase in the initial cost of investing in oil production facilities, which is not an inexorable reality. Thus, with this chapter, we aim to sensitize the reader to simple (energy efficiency) actions that have little impact on initial investment costs, or even reduce these costs. Naturally, such actions promote a significant reduction in operating costs, which are present throughout the life cycle of facilities.

The shift to cleaner forms of energy must happen as quickly as possible in order to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. However, the viability of the available possibilities in terms of energy is something that needs to be analyzed so that the studies may be carried out based on trajectories that are able to meet human requirements in all their guises. Thus, the purpose of this study is to identify the opportunities and problems associated with the transition to a cleaner energy source, with a particular focus on the oil industry. These opportunities and challenges are broken down according to the environmental, economic, technological, and social dimensions. In particular, the paper titled “Net Zero by 2050 A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector” that was published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) is evaluated. The findings suggest that oil will continue to play an important role, mainly in the transportation business, the petrochemical industry, and fundamental industry; nevertheless, adjustments to the low carbon scenario will be required. The significance of businesses in the oil and gas industry is also brought to light. Act in conjunction with national governments to increase energy access and the exchange of technological information while simultaneously lowering overall usage.