Carbon footprint of oil products pipeline transportation

Abstract

As climate issues gradually attract public attention worldwide, the operation and construction of oil product pipelines have been attached with new energy-saving and emission-reduction targets. Though previous studies concerning Life Cycle Assessment of oil and gas pipelines have estimated the carbon footprint to some extent, there is a lack of researches that take the characteristics of oil products pipelines into consideration. Oil products pipelines undertake the task of delivering various products to downstream demand locations, which differs greatly from other pipeline transportation systems as back-to-back sequential delivery is adopted. In this paper, a detailed Life Cycle Assessment model is established to analyze carbon emissions of oil products pipeline system from construction to disposal as well as its impact on soil environment. Data from practical pipes is adopted as the case study to reflect emissions produced in different stages, and the amount of total and unified emissions of different pipes provided through the proposed model is within the range of 2.78 to 4.70 tCO2e/t·km. Then, sensitivity analysis is carried out to identify the driving factors of emissions. According to the calculation results, pipe length, diameter and throughput turn out to be the dominating factors, and an empirical formula is derived for future planned pipes. Relevant recommendations are put forward based on the results to help reduce emissions from oil product pipe transportation.