Significance of Energy Intensity and GHG Emission Reduction Towards Sustainability of a Petrochemical Plant

Sustainability is an important pillar in today’s petrochemical industry for improving process efficacy by reducing specific energy consumption, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and wastewater. SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corporation) like other giant petrochemical companies has set stringent sustainability targets and investing huge resources to transform its plants from the present position to the first quartile in each category.

SABIC is the world largest producer of ethylene oxide and ethylene glycol. For each ton of glycol produced, 0.2 to 0.5 tons of CO₂ is emitted as GHG. The significance of sustainability “in general” while the methodology adopted to reduce energy intensity, carbon footprint, and wastewater “in particular”, will be discussed thoroughly in our talk.