Location: IN - India
This dataset describes the operation of a typical oil refinery in the given geography. Since refineries are very complex the actual unit process modeling is done in a separate refinery model by ifeu and this is a subdivided product-specific dataset.
The ifeu refinery model reproduces the complexity of petroleum refinery plants in which the combination and sequence of processes are usually very specific to the characteristics of the raw materials (i.e. the close relation between the composition of the crude oil and the products to be produced). Refineries differ not only in their configurations, process integration, feedstocks, product mixes, unit sizes, designs, and control systems but also the market situations, locations and ages of the refinery or environmental regulations can result in a wide variety of refinery concepts. It represents the current European state-of-the-art. The basic setting of the model reflects the technical characteristics of European refineries as described in the BREF - BAT reference document for the Refining of Mineral Oil and Gas. Further specific data was collected from companies and production plants and was incorporated in order to elaborate a comprehensive and robust model of a refinery.
The BREF contains not only aggregated numbers or weighted averages of emission and energy or water consumptions, but also encompasses primary data of the majority of refineries in Europe in anonymous form. The data quality is excellent. This data source has been complemented by various specific confidential refinery datasets, by values from Eurostat (e.g. in the case of the energy source mix or process energy), and by literature data. In the case of the BREF, a range of values were mentioned as process parameters for which the arithmetic averages were applied. After adapting the model to the up-to-date mass and energy flows within the European refineries, it has been validated and calibrated by comparing the results to the dataset of the BREF, the Eurostat and the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR).
Despite the default settings (weighted EU average), the refinery model was adjusted to fit typical refinery production data in the special geographies. In order to do this data from the refineries in the countries was analysed and an assessment of the refinery complexity (according to the BREF classes) was done. Furthermore crude oil qualities were researched an adjusted (e.g. sulphur content and API class) to fit the specified geography.
Documentation for this model can be found in the ecoinvent refinery report by Fehrenbach et al. (2018).
Undefined unit processes (UPRs) are the unlinked, multi-product activity datasets that form the basis for all of the system models available in the ecoinvent database. This is the way the datasets are obtained and entered into the database by the data providers. These activity datasets are useful for investigating the environmental impacts of a specific activity (gate-to-gate), without regard to its upstream or downstream impacts.