Production of clean oils has been increased through the wide adoption of clean fuels production technologies. Measures to continuously increase depth of oil processing, adapt to sour, heavy oil processing and further improve light oil yield have been pursued.
Also, competitive, integrated refining and petrochemical complexes have been established in coastal areas to ensure the requirements of energy supply to support national economic development are met. Currently, Sinopec owns a large number of coastal and inland refineries that were built in the s and the s. However, there are still some differences between these refineries and advanced refineries. These differences, in particular, relate to industrial policy requirements and target market demand, the level of advanced process technology, resource utilisation, energy conservation, environment protection and economic benefit.
Therefore, it is necessary to enhance their performance in a number of respects: raising refining capacity; improving oil product quality, optimising the product mix; achieving economies of scale; and exploring a process route with the characteristics of old refineries by exploiting their potential.
As pipeline oil becomes poorer in quality, refineries need to improve their capacity for — and adaptability to — low-quality crude oil processing, to create the conditions for further improving their environmental protection measures and increasing their profitability. The Chinese government aims to adopt tougher quality standards for gasoline and diesel; hence, refineries need to improve measures for gasoline and diesel production by means of technical transformation and improvement, so as to upgrade the quality of crude oils and to supply the market with cleaner oil products.
Refineries need to work out an optimal combination of oil, gas and coal, so as to take full advantage of the extensive resources of China. Development roadmap for older refineries The quality of crude oils needs to be upgraded by phasing out outmoded process units and technically transforming and improving older refineries. Suncor uses two upgrading processes, thermal cracking and hydrotreating, to process crude oil into high-quality refined products, but both methods require significant energy.
Advancing technology development to partially upgrade bitumen would reduce the temperature and pressure of our processes, which can decrease the cost of treating bitumen and lower greenhouse gas GHG intensity. In , we obtained access to the partial upgrading pilot facilities of the Western Research Institute in Laramie, Wyo.
Hydrogen is an emissions-free energy source currently used as part of our refining operations. In a rising carbon price world, hydrogen can become an option for alternative fuels in hard-to-electrify sectors e. It can also be a critical feedstock component for further upgrading our core value chain and potential future operations e. A general trend in the oil industry is a decrease in the proven reserves of light crude oils so that any increase in future oil exploration is associated with high-viscous sulfuric oils and bitumen.
One of the main constraints is very high expenses for the existing technologies of heavy oil recovery, upgrading, transportation, and refining. Heavy oil processing by conventional methods is difficult and requires high power inputs and capital investments.
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