Water Use and Efficiencies in Refineries

Report no. 10/24: This report has been prepared by ERM for Concawe with the aim of describing current water use in EU refineries, establishing the refining water footprint, and examining alternatives practices which may help to reduce future stress on local freshwater resources. Water uses in refineries fall into three categories; 1) process water (for distillation, stripping, cracking and boilers), 2) cooling water, and 3) other non-process water (firefighting, cleaning, etc.). This review is in preparation for the upcoming updates to Best Available Techniques (BAT) Conclusions relevant to the fuel manufacturing industry. The objective was to better understand the industry water efficiencies measures, their applicability and their drivers for implementation. A combination of desk-based literature reviews, data visualization techniques, member interviews, and digital surveys have been used to describe trends in water stress and scarcity across Europe up to 2030, evaluate available water stress tools, identify and define common water metrics, review Concawe member water data (2019), and collate information about members experience with water use, water efficiency techniques, and other related topics.

It was concluded that water stress varies by region across Europe with southern Europe experiencing the greatest impact of water stress, northern regions being heavily populated which impacts (fresh) water availability, and eastern and western regions being largely affected by seasonality resulting in droughts and floods. The greatest challenges regarding the implementation of upcoming changes to the REF BREF are likely to include; a lack of baseline monitoring on which to base ‘reduction’ efforts, difficulty implementing new techniques into existing facilities due to economic or spatial challenges, varying degrees and types of water stress, and the impact of increased reuse on treatment and discharge of wastewater (concentration of contaminants) alongside other cross media effects. Finally, there is a need to have clear definitions for the terms water use, water withdrawal and water consumption in order to derive meaningful metrics that could be used for deriving BAT Conclusions on water use.