Issue 6, 2017

Energetic productivity dynamics of global super-giant oilfields

Abstract

In addition to supplying fuels to society, the oil industry is a globally-significant consumer of energy. Oil sector energetic productivity – measured as output energy per unit of energy consumed – is a major driver of both industry economics and environmental impacts. Increasing climate change concerns necessitate detailed analysis of the energetic productivity of the oil sector. Using an engineering-based life cycle assessment (LCA) approach, we analyze decades-long historical trends of upstream oil production energy return on investment (EROI) for twenty-five globally significant oil fields (>1 billion barrels recoverable). The net energy ratio (NER) and external energy ratio (EER) are used as two measures of oil field energetic productivity. We find that as depletion causes declines in oil output, the associated energy returns decline significantly, with some fields seeing NER declines exceeding 90%. This decrease is caused by reservoir exhaustion forcing increased energy costs in recovery and processing. Probabilistic simulation allows us to generalize from our dataset: over 25 years, this model predicts ∼40% and ∼20% declines in NER and EER medians, respectively. We also derive a general relationship for projecting evolving NER and EER trends. These results have implications for long-run climate/energy system modeling due to potential large increases in extraction energy as global oilfields age. These effects may result in significant underestimation of future energy demand in the global oil sector in long-run integrated assessment models. Lastly, we perform sensitivity analysis examining implications of model assumptions about electricity provision, flare management, and transport.

Graphical abstract: Energetic productivity dynamics of global super-giant oilfields

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
16 4月 2017
Accepted
23 5月 2017
First published
23 5月 2017

Energy Environ. Sci., 2017,10, 1493-1504

Energetic productivity dynamics of global super-giant oilfields

M. S. Masnadi and A. R. Brandt, Energy Environ. Sci., 2017, 10, 1493 DOI: 10.1039/C7EE01031A

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements