Industrial Symbiosis Applied to Oil Refineries: Drivers and Barriers

Oil refineries play an important role in the economy, mainly in the transport and energy sectors; however, they are energy-intensive industries and responsible for a significant amount of waste and carbon dioxide emissions. Industrial symbiosis can contribute significantly to increasing the sustainability of this sector, as it allows entities that are traditionally separate, to cooperate with each other in sharing resources and allows waste valorization. Thus, this article aims to analyze the main drivers, barriers, and challenges that this industry faces when implementing and developing industrial symbiosis. To this end, an exhaustive survey of published case studies of industrial symbiosis with refineries was conducted to analyze the economic activities involved, the type of flow and the role of refineries as source or sink. The study showed that despite the challenges that this sector has to face for the implementation and development of industrial symbiosis, there are numerous possibilities for its realization.