New Delhi: As energy transition picks up pace, crude oil refineries in India will switch to Crude Oil-to-Chemicals (COTC) and employ Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) technologies to decarbonise, industry leaders said at the 26th Energy Technology Meet on Monday. While recognising decarbonisation as an imperative, the industry leaders said during a technical session on the future of refining in India that refineries will either employ CCS technologies to capture carbon from its furnaces or will switch to cleaner, greener feedstock for refineries like Blue or Green Hydrogen.
Speaking during the panel discussion, Gurminder Singh, Director, Technology Licensing for Middle East and North Africa (MENA) for Shell, said that the introduction of carbon tax will incentivise investments towards decarbonisation in the crude oil refining sector in India. “At the end of the day, you need to use the carrot or the stick approach for driving change. Carrot being incentives, and stick being tax. All the companies here are running a business at the end of the day. And they will start investing in decarbonisation only when the cost of not doing so becomes higher,” said Singh.
“Everyone will need to capture carbon from their assets at some point in time,” he said.
Stressing that refinery transition to COTC is inevitable, Dr Partha P Maitra who heads strategic planning for the Oil-to-Chemical initiatives at Reliance Industries, said that the shift will be catalysed as the conversion of Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) vehicles to Electric Vehicles (EVs) takes up in India. Citing an analysis done by the International Energy Agency (IEA), Dr Maitra said that the demand for gasoline in India is expected to peak before 2040 and diesel before 2045. He also said that in the near-term, electrification and energy efficiency will play an important role in abatement of carbon emissions, while Green and Blue Hydrogen, along with biofuels will drive abatement in crude oil refineries in the medium term, and long-term abatement strategies will see deployment of CCS technologies.
The Centre for High Technology (CHT), under the aegis of the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, is organising the 26th Energy Technology Meet (ETM) during October 9-11 at International Exhibition Cum Convention Centre (Bharat Mandapam), Pragati Maidan, New Delhi with Engineers India Limited (EIL) and Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) as co-hosts.
