Changing market demand and increasing environmental regulations challenge the refining industry to shift crude slates and reconfigure production processes while reducing emissions. Yet sellers and buyers remain unaware of the carbon footprint of individual marketable networks, and each crude oil has different specifications and is processed in different destination markets. Here we show the global refining carbon intensity at country level and crude level are 13.9–62.1 kg of CO₂-equivalent (CO₂e) per barrel and 10.1–72.1 kgCO₂e per barrel, respectively, with a volume-weighted average of 40.7 kgCO₂e per barrel (equivalent to 7.3 gCO₂e MJ⁻¹) and energy use of 606 MJ per barrel. We used bottom-up engineering-based refinery modelling on crude oils representing 93% of 2015 global refining throughput. On the basis of projected oil consumption under 2 °C scenarios, the industry could save 56–79 GtCO₂e to 2100 by targeting primary emission sources. These results provide guidance on climate-sensitive refining choices and future investment in emissions mitigation technologies.

不断变化的市场需求和日益严格的环境法规对炼油行业提出了挑战，即在减少排放的同时，改变原板岩和重新配置生产流程。然而，买卖双方仍未意识到各个可销售网络的碳足迹，每种原油都有不同的规格，并且在不同的目的地市场进行加工。在这里，我们显示了在国家和地区一级的全球炼油碳强度分别为每桶13.9–62.1 kg CO ₂当量（CO ₂ e）和每桶10.1–72.1 kgCO ₂ e，体积加权平均值为每桶40.7 kgCO ₂ e（相当于7.3 gCO ₂ e MJ ^-1），每桶能源消耗606 MJ。我们对原油使用了自下而上的基于工程的炼油厂建模，占2015年全球炼油总产量的93％。根据2°C情景下的预计油耗，该行业可以通过将主要排放源作为目标，将56–79 GtCO ₂ e节省2100。这些结果为对气候敏感的精炼选择和减排技术的未来投资提供了指导。