(655a) Detailed Energy Assessment at Oil Refinery: Tools and Results

Saving energy is relatively easy to justify when fuel prices and electricity tariff is high; however, it is not the case in Saudi Arabia. Energy conservation can still be justified on the grounds of freeing up capacity for other users within the kingdom and deferring the need for major capital investment in new gas production and power generation projects. Accordingly, Saudi Aramco decided to develop an energy conservation program in its numerous oil and gas plants specifically tailored to prevailing economic conditions. The primary motivation is to reduce Saudi Aramco's fuel gas and power consumption. A Saudi Aramco energy conservation program is expected to have a "ripple" effect throughout the kingdom as other consumers follow the Saudi Aramco's lead in this effort. One major part of this program is to perform plant detailed energy assessment to identify economically sound opportunities in reducing energy cost. In this paper, we will describe the steps taken to conduct the assessment at Yanbu Refinery (YR), and summarize some of the results achieved.