Well-to-refinery emissions and net-energy analysis of China's crude-oil supply

Oil is China's second-largest energy source, so it is essential to understand the country's greenhouse gas emissions from crude-oil production. Chinese crude supply is sourced from numerous major global petroleum producers. Here, we use a perbarrel well-to-refinery life-cycle analysis model with data derived from hundreds of public and commercial sources to model the Chinese crude mix and the upstream carbon intensities and energetic productivity of China's crude supply. We generate a carbon-denominated supply curve representing Chinese crude-oil supply from 146 oilfields in 20 countries. The selected fields are estimated to emit between similar to 1.5 and 46.9 g CO(2)eq MJ(-1) of oil, with volume-weighted average emissions of 8.4 g CO(2)eq MJ(-1). These estimates are higher than some existing databases, illustrating the importance of bottom-up models to support life-cycle analysis databases. This study provides quantitative insight into China's energy policy and the economic and environmental implications of China's oil consumption.