Fuel Consumed by Oil Refineries

[Cesium]

Hi everyone,

I was looking at some data from the Energy Information Association (http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mecs/mecs2006/pdf/Table3_2.pdf\) about the fuel used by different industrial processes. Under the industry of "Petroleum Refining," there is a bit of natural gas and electricity used, but the majority of the energy comes from an 'Other' section listed on the far right of the table. This is listed as constituting about 70% of the energy used by petroleum refineries. The footnote for the 'other' category says

'Other' includes net steam (the sum of purchases, generation from renewables, and net transfers), and other energy that respondents indicated was used to produce heat and power.

What does 'other' refer to in this case? Is it energy derived from cracking of the oil?

The categories that are not 'other' are electricity, natural gas, residual fuel oil, distillate fuel oil, LPG, NGL, coal, and coke.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Note: I am not sure if this is the proper section to post this question.

 

[mgb_phys]

It may just mean that the energy was generated from the oil by-products on site.
So if a refinery burns some of the oil it's refining on site to run it's own process there is no way to accurately account for this - there would be no trucks arriving, no tax to pay and the refinery probably considers it commercial info.

 

[mbeychok]

Almost all large petroleum refineries produce by-product fuel gas which is consumed in the refinery. Some refineries may also consume some of the fuel oils that they produce.

Milt Beychok