By YU Haoyuan

After China released a two-year action plan for energy conservation and carbon reduction, five key departments, including the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration, collaborated to issue a specific action plan for the oil refining industry this June. This plan aims to improve energy efficiency in the sector and reduce CO2 emissions.

The plan sets targets to be achieved by the end of 2025, and focuses on three key objectives:

• Keeping the country's primary refining capacity for crude oil below one billion mt/year.

• Increasing the proportion of production capacity in the refining industry above the energy efficiency benchmark to over 30 percent.

•Completing the technological transformation or phase-out of production capacity below the energy efficiency benchmark.

Through energy-saving and carbon-reduction retrofits and equipment updates, it is expected that from 2024 to 2025, the plan will save two million tons of energy in standard coal equivalent and reduce CO2 emissions by around five million tons.

Moreover, China is striving to ensure energy efficiency of the refining industry reaches an international advanced level at the end of 2030, with significant progress being made in green and low-carbon development.

The plan emphasizes optimizing the industrial structure and layout, strictly controlling oil refining capacity, and ensuring that new and expanded projects meet energy efficiency benchmarks and A-level environmental performance. It also encourages renewable energy, hydrogen production technology and supports green hydrogenrefining projects. Another key focus area is to accelerate the update of energy-using equipment by promoting high-efficiency devices and phasing out distillation units with capacities of two million tons per year or less.

In terms of clean and low-carbon energy substitution, the plan aims to promote the adoption of power generated from renewable sources, facilitate the transition from steam turbines to electric drives, and encourage enterprises to shift their energy use model by increasing the usage of diverse electricity sources and natural gas. It also seeks to improve cross-industry efficiency by linking the oil refining industry with steel, cement, new energy, and energy storage sectors. Digital empowerment is another focus, with the establishment of digital energy management centers and the coordinated management of energy use and carbon emissions data.

Official support includes implementing policies that exclude raw material energy use and non-fossil energy from dual-controls over energy intensity and gross energy consumption, refining tiered electricity pricing for high-emission industries, increasing financial support, and developing green and transition financial products and services. The plan also emphasizes updating mandatory national standards for energy consumption limits in the oil refining industry and advancing the R&D of energy-saving and carbon-reduction technologies.

The implementation of this action plan will significantly promote energy conservation and carbon reduction in the oil refining industry, and contribute significantly to achieving China's energy and environmental goals.