Masnadi Mohammad S, Benini Giacomo, El-Houjeiri Hassan M, Milivinti Alice, Anderson James E, Wallington Timothy J, De Kleine Robert, Dotti Valerio, Jochem Patrick, Brandt Adam R
Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Department of Energy Resources Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
Nature. 2021 Nov;599(7883):80-84. doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03932-2. Epub 2021 Nov 3.
Expanded use of novel oil extraction technologies has increased the variability of petroleum resources and diversified the carbon footprint of the global oil supply. Past life-cycle assessment (LCA) studies overlooked upstream emission heterogeneity by assuming that a decline in oil demand will displace average crude oil. We explore the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions impacts of marginal crude sources, identifying the upstream carbon intensity (CI) of the producers most sensitive to an oil demand decline (for example, due to a shift to alternative vehicles). We link econometric models of production profitability of 1,933 oilfields (~90% of the 2015 world supply) with their production CI. Then, we examine their response to a decline in demand under three oil market structures. According to our estimates, small demand shocks have different upstream CI implications than large shocks. Irrespective of the market structure, small shocks (-2.5% demand) displace mostly heavy crudes with ~25-54% higher CI than that of the global average. However, this imbalance diminishes as the shocks become bigger and if producers with market power coordinate their response to a demand decline. The carbon emissions benefits of reduction in oil demand are systematically dependent on the magnitude of demand drop and the global oil market structure.
新型石油开采技术的广泛应用增加了石油资源的可变性，并使全球石油供应的碳足迹多样化。过去的生命周期评估（LCA）研究通过假设石油需求下降将取代平均原油，而忽略了上游排放的异质性。我们探讨了边际原油来源对生命周期温室气体排放的影响，确定了对石油需求下降（例如，由于转向替代车辆）最敏感的生产商的上游碳强度（CI）。我们将1933个油田（约占2015年世界供应量的90%）的生产盈利能力计量经济模型与其生产CI联系起来。然后，我们研究了它们在三种石油市场结构下对需求下降的反应。根据我们的估计，小需求冲击与大冲击对上游CI的影响不同。无论市场结构如何，小冲击（-2.5%的需求）主要取代重质原油，其CI比全球平均水平高约25-54%。然而，随着冲击变大以及具有市场势力的生产商协调其对需求下降的反应，这种不平衡会减弱。石油需求减少带来的碳排放益处系统地取决于需求下降的幅度和全球石油市场结构。
