Conoco Phillips’ Energy Efficiency Approach

ConocoPhillips continually strives to improve the energy efficiency of our refineries. This accomplishes three goals:

1. Reducing our energy consumption in the form of electricity, natural gas, refinery gas and steam.

2. Improving the GHG impact of our operations.

3. Reducing our operating costs.

We are performing energy-efficiency reviews at our refineries to identify opportunities to reduce energy consumption. Indeed, this is a vital goal that is considered in conjunction with such operational objectives as expanding processing and clean-fuels production capacities, and improving ability to refine more difficult grades of crude oil. In ventures where we are not the operator or hold a minority interest, we strive to influence our partners to implement similar programs.

For example, certain heater-replacement projects allow more efficient operations and improve energy efficiency. These include our Borger, Texas, refinery’s gasoline benzene reduction project, and the major expansion and heavy-oil-processing project at our Wood River refinery in Roxanna, Ill., which will incorporate more efficient process heaters and modern heat recovery.

Significant energy-efficiency improvements were realized through several projects in 2008:

Los Angeles refinery – Coker unit fractionation improvements.

Ponca City refinery – New furnace with better energy efficiency.

Trainer refinery – Two new boilers replaced older, less-efficient units.

Flare gas recovery projects at multiple refineries – Recapturing waste gases for refinery use, reducing flaring and thus improving energy efficiency.

Additionally, during 2008 the Billings refinery in Montana received its second consecutive EPA ENERGY STAR® for superior energy efficiency based on the Energy Intensity Index®, as defined by Solomon Associates, an industry consultant specializing in comparative performance analysis. This analysis placed the refinery in the top quartile of energy efficiency for similarly sized facilities. Our Lake Charles refinery in Westlake, La., also received the ENERGY STAR® in mid-2007.

UPSTREAM EFFICIENCY

The company’s Exploration and Production business unit conducted a number of projects to improve overall energy efficiency in its producing fields. Among them, the Ekofisk II redevelopment project in the North Sea utilized high-efficiency turbines to reduce power usage and recover waste heat produced during power generation.

The C-GAS project, undertaken by ConocoPhillips China, replaced diesel fuel with excess associated gas to fuel the turbine generator during the early operational years. This project achieved greater efficiency, reduced flare volumes and reduced diesel fuel consumption.

In Indonesia, our Suban natural gas processing plant optimized power generation by implementing a load sharing and fuel usage monitoring system.

In 2008, the Canada business unit completed more than 160 projects, saving approximately 7.9 million cubic meters of natural gas. This also precluded approximately 31,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions, equivalent to taking 5,900 cars off the road. Projects included installing solar-powered chemical injection units, upgrading burners, optimizing our operations to allow some facilities and equipment to be shut down, capturing vented gas, and identifying and eliminating fugitive emissions at our facilities. The energy efficiency team is committed to completing eight large and 80 small projects in 2009 to evaluate and test technologies that will reduce our emissions footprint. The results of these efforts and ideas for future projects will be tracked and recorded.

The U.S. Lower 48 business unit improved energy efficiency through greater utilization of photovoltaic solar panels on field equipment. For example, we are installing solar-powered chemical injection units in place of gas-powered pumps on wells, thus reducing emissions and fuel use.

Source: www.conocophillips.com