Energy Efficiency in Oil Production Facilities

Before diving into oil production facilities and identifying ways to make them more energy efficient, the reader may ask himself the following questions: (1) “What is energy efficiency in an oil production facility?” (2) “What should be optimized in your production processes?” (3) “How should we measure its performance?” Such questions are apparently simple, however, certainly, experienced professionals will have different answers. To start the chapter and have a more homogeneous view among readers, the first subsection of this chapter provides the concept of energy efficiency in oil production facilities to be used in this book. Next, we present the reader with basic information about oil production facilities and their production processes, to gradually provide information related to the main theme of the book, energy efficiency. Strangely, it is common to see professionals relating the increase in energy efficiency to the increase in the initial cost of investing in oil production facilities, which is not an inexorable reality. Thus, with this chapter, we aim to sensitize the reader to simple (energy efficiency) actions that have little impact on initial investment costs, or even reduce these costs. Naturally, such actions promote a significant reduction in operating costs, which are present throughout the life cycle of facilities.