Abstract
The objective seems to be very clear, carbon footprint needs to be reduced in all the activities that humans do, but specially in those that will have greater impact, such as processes associated with the Oil and Gas industry. The difficult part seems to be how to do it, or at least, how to start.
The first logical step in the road to reduce something is to know how much of it there is, or, in this case, it is being produced. If the intention is to include the Green House Gases (GHG) emissions calculation and, therefore, reduction objectives, in all project decisions, a simpler way to measure it should be developed. The aim of this paper is to show a method that was designed and applied, to simplify the identification of GHG emissions throughout several processes and activities, and the following quantification using a company tool (Veolia´s GHG Calculation Tool), to find feasible and effective reduction actions.
Some real cases will be shown, revealing how it was possible to easily include carbon footprint when selecting variants within certain projects. Although the cases are originally related to chemical treatments, mainly for production and fracture in Oil and Gas fields, the application can be extrapolated to other divisions. This work provides several examples showing how the understanding of emissions and the fractioning of operations into simple unit tasks is essential to make an adequate comparison. The aim is to demonstrate that the incorporation of GHG emissions calculation in the analysis of projects is relatively simple, and how it is possible to consider it as a central aspect when designing or selecting projects, resulting, many times, the best GHG emission option, consistent with the most favorable alternative from an economic or operational point of view.
Additionally, the quantification of the reduction obtained thru certain choices regarding chemical treatments will be shown.
