Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124654

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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Life cycle sustainability assessment of crude oil in India

Shilpi Shrivastava PhD Research Scholar *, Seema Unnikrishnan Professor
Center for Environmental Studies, National Institute of Industrial Engineering, Mumbai, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Integrating sustainability into the process of the supply chain is a paramount challenge for every industry
Received 16 March 2020 aiming to thrive or survive in this ever-changing world. Sustainability is more relevant for the oil in-
Received in revised form dustries because oil is one of the leading sources of energy in India. The demand for fuels is increasing at
8 October 2020
a fast rate even though it is one of the non-renewable resources. The main focus of this study is to carry
Accepted 11 October 2020
out the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) of the crude oil in India and to assess its performance
Available online 14 October 2020
from well-to-tank, i.e., from the extraction of crude oil till the dispatch of finished fuel from storage. The
Handling editor. Prof. Jiri Jaromir Kleme
s LCSA is considered to be an appropriate tool for accessing the three aspects of sustainability which are
environment, economic, and social. According to the study, the majority of emissions are from the oil
Keywords: refining phase and transportation phase. For performing the Life Cycle Costing (LCC) a new economic
Life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) method has been developed for this study. As far as the social aspect is concerned, it was found that the
Crude oil industries have established a strong relationship with their stakeholders but there is the scope of
Sustainability improvement in various subcategories. An integrated framework model for LCSA of crude oil is presented
Economic
based on the outcomes of this study. Sustainability measures are also suggested which can lead to
Social
environmental, economic, and social sustainability.
India
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The oil sector is considered to be the leading source of energy in
the world and the second leading energy source in India after coal
(BP, 2016). Moreover, India is the third major consumer of fuels in
the world after China and the US. Thus this sector plays a lead role
in building the nation’s economy, although it has a significant
impact on the environment during each stage of its production. The
crude oil process chain involves two stages, upstream and down-
stream. Upstream activities involve all processes starting from
crude oil exploration, drilling, extraction, storage, and crude oil
shipping. Downstream activities start from the crude oil refining,
transportation, storage, and distribution of the finished fuel
(Schneider et al., 2015). This complex and interconnected process is
highly risk-prone. In almost all stages it has an adverse environ-
mental impact, especially on water and land resources (Matyugina
et al., 2016). Fuel production causes environmental pollution which
challenges the objectives of sustainable development, while
pollution pressure restricts the country’s economic growth and
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: shilpi.shrivastava.2016@nitie.ac.in (S.
seemaunnikrishnan@nitie.ac.in (S. Unnikrishnan).
social development (Bian et al., 2015). The fuel industries are
continuously working to reduce the adverse environmental and
social impacts of their industrial process (Schneider et al., 2011).
The concept of Sustainability is implemented at the policy level
but it needs to be extended in the business context: In view of this,
fuel industries have incorporated sustainability in their mission
owing to a deal of increased demand for sustainable products by
more aware consumers. Also, according to the Global Reporting
Initiative (GRI) guidelines, the oil sector must identify and report
the significant impacts of their different processes on the envi-
ronment and different stakeholders from a sustainable develop-
ment perspective. Progressing towards sustainability also requires
upgrading the approaches for evaluation of the life cycle and aim
for sustainable products (Sala et al., 2013). The key to achieving this
sustainable development goal is the protection of the Environment.
Apart from environmental protection, economic and social pro-
tections are also included in the perspective. Because of this, the
framework of LCSA was proposed as it integrates environmental
protection, economical perspective, and social equity. Across the
established environmental and sustainability tools, the LCSA tool is
the finest and provides the highest level of assessment (Janjua et al.,
2020). The main drivers for the development of LCSA are the shift in
perspective from the protection of the environment to economic
Shrivastava),
and social protection (Finkbeiner et al., 2010).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.124654
0959-6526/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
S. Shrivastava and S. Unnikrishnan
This flow of the article is as follows. The initial segment provides
a concise introduction to the Life cycle sustainability assessment
and the crude oil process chain. The next section provides a brief
literature review of LCSA followed by the methodology used to
perform the LCSA of crude oil with the details of all the steps. Then
the LCSA result is presented which is compared with other studies
in the same sector. Based on the results, an integrated framework is
proposed which binds all three pillars of sustainability and will help
researchers, decision-makers, policymakers in different ways.
Recommendations are also provided based on the results which can
be used by industries to attain sustainability.
2. Literature review
The life cycle sustainability assessment has broadened the scope
of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) from studying only environmental
impacts to covering all three sustainability aspects (Environmental,
Economic, and Social). We can get a more accurate and sustainable
solution of life cycle analysis by combining the three aspects of
sustainability i.e., environment, cost analysis, and social. However,
the integration of all the pillars into a common methodological
framework is still scarce. One of the reasons for that is the nature of
the indicators used in these tools, with some being quantitative and
others qualitative, making their aggregation difficult (Zamagni
et al., 2013).
The method of determining the sustainability impacts
throughout a process supply chain (maybe of different length) is
called the product life cycle assessment (PLCA). PLCA formed the
basis for the study of environmental degradation and the costs of
their reparation. Later on, the notion of social life cycle assessment
(S-LCA) was introduced in PLCA for studying the impacts on the
process chain on the society (Mesari c et al., 2016). It has broadened
the LCA scope from only environmental protection to covering all
three scopes of sustainability (planet, profit, and people) (alterna-
tively PPP or P3), where People connotes the social pillar, Planet is
the environmental pillar, and Profit stands for the economic pillar
(Heijungs et al., 2009). At the World Summit on Sustainable
Development in Johannesburg (2002), the PPP was altered into
People, Planet, Prosperity, where the difference between Profit and
Prosperity mirrored the way financial measurement covers more
than organizational benefits. Introducing more dimensions into
LCA will help understand if products, activities, and services are
moving towards sustainability, and enable strategic decisions
(Benedetto, 2009).
From the outset, it was clear that a complete sustainability
evaluation would require at least two additional dimensions, the
economic and the social (Kloepffer, 2008). The method which is
used to evaluate the three pillars of sustainability comprises of
Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (E-LCA) for environmental
impacts, Life cycle costing (E-LCC) to calculate the life cycle cost and
Social Life cycle assessment (S-LCA) for assessing the social impacts.
LCSA is the incorporation of the above three techniques. LCSA helps
in providing a comprehensive view of products and processes
sustainability, which increases the support for policymakers and
decision-makers (UNEP/SETAC, 2011). The sustainability impact
categories identified by various authors are presented in Table 1.
The present state of the literature on LCSA is that the majority of
publications are poised of review studies, practical advances, and
viewpoints, indicating that LCSA is still establishing its theoretical
root (Costa et al., 2019). Despite the fact that the LCSA methodology
is still in the progressing stage, various authors (Ferrari et al., 2019;
Settembre-Blundo et al., 2018; Guine e, 2016; Cinelli et al., 2013;
Zamagni et al., 2013) have used LCSA in their studies, which
encompass all the three pillars of sustainability to explore its po-
tential i.e., environmental, economical, and social aspects.
2
Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124654
Elhuni and Ahmad (2017) proposed key performance indicators
(KPI’s) for sustainable production evaluation for the oil and gas
sector in the country of Libya. The performance indicators were
studied for all the three pillars of sustainability but the evaluation
model for sustainable production was missing. Similarly, one of the
LCSA studies conducted by Ferrari et al. (2019) for ceramic tiles in
Italy presented a separate framework for each aspect of sustain-
ability (LCA, LCC, S-LCA) to avoid the possibility of dual-counting of
sustainability performance. Hannouf and Assefa (2017) proposed
an integrated framework for performing the Life Cycle Sustain-
ability Assessment of high-density polyethylene in Canada and
highlighted that there are challenges in the interpretation of the
interrelationship between the three pillars of sustainability and
also in establishing a relationship between the results of the three
techniques (LCA, LCC, S-LCA).
An important research gap reported by some of the authors
discussed above was the lack of relationship between the three
pillars of sustainability (Guine e 2016; Zamagni et al., 2013). There
was also a lack of demonstration of the relationship between the
three pillars of sustainability concerning the fuel sector. As reported
by Costa et al. (2019), the majority of the LCSA case studies were
from countries like the USA and Germany. Case studies are essential
for all the sectors and countries to strengthen the discussion on
increasing challenges, and to provide strategies for implementing
LCSA.
With the extensive literature reviews on LCSA of various sectors
and countries, it was observed that this study is the first attempt to
integrate all three pillars of sustainability as an LCSA approach in
the crude oil sector in India; therefore the focus of this study is on
performing the LCSA for the crude oil process chain in India.
Depending on data of production, consumption, raw material
requirement, and emissions in a given period, a simple LCA, LCC,
and S-LCA were conducted and an attempt was made to integrate
the three pillars of sustainability through a framework model. Also,
sustainability improvement proposals and policy framework rec-
ommendations are suggested to attain sustainability goals. How-
ever, there are few limitations in the study which include the non-
availability of data for environmental LCA, various cost categories,
and few social sub-categories. Where the primary data was not
present, secondary data was used from the databases, sustainability
reports and annual reports of industries, and journal papers.
3. Materials & method
The methodology for evaluating the LCSA of the crude oil con-
sists of four steps as defined in UNEP/SETAC (2011) guidelines: LCSA
goal and scope, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and LCSA
interpretation (Fig. 1). LCSA is an integration of three life cycle at-
tributes which are LCA, LCC, and S-LCA. Out of these, LCA is the only
tool that is an ISO-14040-44 Standardized (Finkbeiner et al., 2006).
LCC and S-LCA tools need further research and clarification on their
methodology (Hannouf and Assefa, 2017; Guinee, 2016; Lichtenvort
et al., 2008). The steps used in LCSA are as follows-
3.1. LCSA goal and scope
The goal of the study is to perform the LCSA of the crude oil and
to assess its performance from well to tank, i.e., from raw material
extraction until the dispatch of finished fuel from storage. The
functional unit chosen for the LCA and LCC study is 1 Metric Ton
(MT) of fuel produced. In S-LCA functional unit is not required
because qualitative data is collected for S-LCA which is further
converted into quantitative data for assessment, but as per the
guidelines provided by UNEP/SETAC (2009), the functional unit
must be selected for performing S-LCA, so the functional unit
S. Shrivastava and S. Unnikrishnan Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124654

Table 1
Various Sustainability indicators identified by authors.

Sustainability Sustainability indicators Authors (Year)

Aspects

Environmental Fossil energy use and GHG emissions Garraín et al.

(2014)
Acidification, Organic & inorganic respiratory effects, Fossil fuels, Eutrophication, Greenhouse effect, Ecotoxicity, and Carcinogenic Nanaki et al.
effects. (2012)
Acidification, Human toxicity, Climate change, Ozone depletion, Terrestrial ecotoxicity, Water depletion, Marine eutrophication, Morales et al.
Photochemical oxidation formation, Marine ecotoxicity, Terrestrial freshwater eutrophication, Freshwater ecotoxicity, Mineral (2015)
depletion, and Fossil depletion.
Global warming potential, Ozone depletion, Eco-toxicity, Energy consumption, Nitrification and Acidification Matos et al.
(2007)
Abiotic depletion, GHG emissions, Ozone layer depletion, Photochemical oxidation, Human and eco-toxicity, Acidification, Luo et al. (2009)
Eutrophication
Economic Cost of waste disposal, cost of effluent/waste treatment, cost of effluent/waste control, cost of implementation of environmental Kumaran et al.
management systems, cost savings of renewable energy utilization, and cost savings of recycling and reuse strategies. (2001)
Insurance Cost, Electricity Cost, Kara et al. (2017)
Replacement Batteries.
Annual distance, vehicle life, Discount rate, Exchange rate Ally and Pryor
(2016)
Building costs, Site costs, Design fee, Salvage value, Demolition cost Gluch and
Baumann (2004)
Social Local health and safety, low wages, land, and water rights. Prasara and
Gheewala (2018)
Collective bargaining, Transparency, Feedback mechanism, and privacy Petti et al. (2016)
Economic prosperity, Training and skill development, Healthcare facilities, Access to clean water, Infrastructure, Access to education, Singh and Gupta
and Workplace safety for workers (2018)

2018). This gave us the idea of the type of data to be collected

Fig. 1. LCSA framework (Source: UNEP SETAC 2009 guidelines).
selected was 1 MT of fuel. It is stated in the UNEP/SETAC report
(2009) that “Setting a functional unit for S-LCA is as fundamental
as in E-LCA because it is the starting point to determine a product
system.”
The major assumptions made in this study are provided in
Table 2.
3.2. Inventory analysis
For LCA study, the life cycle inventory (LCI) was developed for
each stage of the crude oil process chain. The inventory data was
collected using a questionnaire. The questionnaire design was
based on information available from companies’ sustainability re-
ports, annual reports, LCA data collection sheets, and journal papers
(Wolf et al., 2012; Logaras D, 2008; Weidema et al., 2004; Vigon
1993; HPCL sustainability report 2018; BPCL sustainability report
3
from industries. The questionnaire was later strengthened by tak-
ing inputs from five LCA experts, their suggestions, and advice
incorporated into the final questionnaire. The questionnaire
included questions related to the raw materials requirement, en-
ergy sources, products and co-products generated, emissions to air,
water, and land, disposable waste, and hazardous waste generated.
The data was then collected during a personal visit to the oil
extraction unit, oil refinery, and storage unit.
For LCC the data was collected using a questionnaire and face to
face interaction through personal visits. The questionnaire includes
questions regarding initial capital cost (equipment purchase costs,
transportation costs, installation costs, contingency charges, etc.),
operation and maintenance costs, and disposal costs. However,
certain questions related to costing were confidential from the
corporate point of view and much data on this aspect were not
forthcoming. Therefore the missing data was collected through the
company’s annual reports, expansion reports, and sustainability
reports (HPCL annual report, 2018e19; HPCL sustainability report
2018e19; HPCL expansion report; BPCL annual report 2018e19;
BPCL sustainability report 2018e19).
As per the guidelines published in UNEP/SETAC (2009), S-LCA is
the assessment of the impacts of five stakeholder categories
(Table 3) which are Workers, Consumers, Society, Local community,
and Value Chain actors (other than consumers). In the current
study, we have focused only on three stakeholder categories-
Workers, Consumers, and Society due to the non-availability of data
for the others. For S-LCA, a separate questionnaire was prepared for
each stakeholder category and its sub-categories, based on the sub-
categories defined for each stakeholder group in the UNEP report
for LCSA. The questionnaire includes questions covering all the
selected stakeholders’ subcategories like working hours, health and
safety, equal opportunity, end-of-life responsibility, etc. Random
sampling was done for the selected stakeholder categories. The
number of respondents was 35 workers for the stakeholder cate-
gory ‘workers’, and 33 employees each for both ‘Society’ and
‘Consumers’. The data collected was considered sufficient to yield
necessary social data for conducting S-LCA study.
S. Shrivastava and S. Unnikrishnan Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124654

Table 2
Various assumptions made in the study.

Process Stage Assumptions/Limitations

Crude oil The raw materials requirement and emissions related to the extraction process is considered for this study, the raw materials used in machinery for
extraction extraction is not considered.
Crude oil refining The crude oil refining process is assumed as a single process and not categorized into a sub process due to extreme complexity and dense
connections between the streams. Also, the raw materials required in the construction of the refinery plant are not considered in the study.
Finished fuel The raw materials required in the construction of storage tanks are not considered in the study.
storage
Transportation Three modes of transportation were considered in the study i.e., rail (rail wagons), road (oil tankers), and pipelines. The raw materials required for
constructing the rails, trucks, or pipeline and its end-of-life is not considered in the study. Primary data was collected for rail and road from the
industries. The existing pipeline network is not considered in the study, only the length of the pipeline network is used and other related data were
collected from the ecoinvent database. Assumed that the ecoinvent database can be extrapolated and used for Indian conditions.

Table 3 Environmental LCC and Environmental LCA can be conducted in the

Different stakeholder categories and their sub-categories (Source: UNEP SETAC, same software as they have a similar framework structure and both
2009). can be interpreted together. So, the LCC impact assessment was also
STAKEHOLDER CATEGORIES SUBCATEGORIES done in SimaPro software. Since there is no costing data available
Worker Child Labor
for India in the Ecoinvent database or other SimaPro databases, a
Fair Salary new assessment method was created according to the study done
Working Hours by Banar and Ozdemir (2015) and Ciroth et al. (2009), which con-
Health and Safety sists of three steps which include required cost types (e.g. Direct
Forced Labor
costs, Indirect costs, Operation cost, Taxes, etc.), weighing factors
Equal Opportunities/Discrimination
Social Benefits (generally assigned ‘1’ for the simple addition of all cost categories)
Consumer Health and safety then adding economic issues to process and calculating life cycle
Feedback Mechanism costs.
Consumer Privacy For S-LCA, an impact assessment was done through the Sub-
Transparency
category Assessment method (SAM). The SAM approach helps in
End of Life Responsibility
Society Public commitments to sustainability issues studying the social aspect of a selected industry. The framework of
Contribution to Economic Development SAM as described in UNEP/SETAC guidelines uses a four-level scale
Technology Development (A, B, C, D) for each subcategory (Ramirez et al., 2014). It also
Corruption
changes the qualitative data into quantitative data. The description
Local Community Access to material resource
Access to immaterial resource of each level is specified in Table 4.
Delocalization and Migration
Cultural Heritage 3.4. Interpretation
Safe and Healthy living condition
Secure living condition
Value Chain actors Fair competition
This stage is needed to identify, quantify, check, and evaluate
Promoting Social Responsibility information obtained from the results of the impact assessment.
Supplier Relationship The interpretation is done based on the results we got from our
study. Also, an integrated framework has been proposed in the
result section. The recommendations are also provided for
improvement in each dimension.
3.3. Impact assessment
4. Results & discussion
The impact assessment for E-LCA was done using the SimaPro v7
Software. SimaPro offers an easily accessible and continuously The results are presented separately for all three life cycle at-
updated information database that documents the costs, energy, tributes. Denotations and explanations of terms used to express the
and environmental impact of every raw material or processed part impact category are explained in Table 5.
of a produced item being purchased and refined. It also looks at the
environmental impact offering alternative fabrication, storage, 4.1. LCA results
recyclability, emissions, and recycling choices (Sustainability,
2014). The assessment has been made considering the various phases
The database selected for impact assessment was Ecoinvent. It of the crude oil process chain. The results are presented stage-wise
provides well-documented process data for a variety of products (Fig. 2); the substance used in the operations that contribute most
(Frischknecht et al., 2005). The method used for impact assessment to the environmental impact is identified for each stage and the
is ReCipe. The main reason for selecting the ReCiPe is that it de- results obtained are validated by comparing our results with other
termines indicators at two levels; midpoint and endpoint in- LCA studies in the same sector. The comparison of impact cate-
dicators. The focus of midpoint indicators is only on single gories for each stage is presented as a combined result.
environmental problems, for example, climate change, eutrophi-
cation acidification, etc. whereas endpoint indicators illustrate the 4.1.1. Crude oil extraction
environmental impact on three higher aggregation levels, which The maximum environmental impact could be attributed to
are i) Effect on human health, ii) Biodiversity and iii) Resource natural gas extraction. The extraction process emits various toxic
scarcity. substances in the atmosphere. Burning natural gas also produces
For the LCC impact assessment, the UNEP SETAC guidelines for nitrogen oxides (NOx), which act as a precursor to smog. The main
LCC were followed which has a structure similar to LCA. impact categories identified at this stage are climate change and
4
S. Shrivastava and S. Unnikrishnan Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124654

Table 4
Description of various levels in the SAM approach

Level Assessment Description

A 4 The organization shows proactive behavior than the basic requirement (BR). It promotes and fulfills the requirements of its value chain.
B 3 The organization respects the basic requirement.
C 2 The organization does not respect the basic requirement.
D 1 The organization presents the non-compliance with the norms.

(Source: UNEP SETAC, 2009).

Table 5
Denotation and explanation of expressions.

Expression Explanations

Kg CO2 Eq This is a metric indicator used to compare emissions from various greenhouse gases based on their potential for global warming (GWP).
Kg DB Eq Human toxicity Potentials are measured using the reference unit, equivalent kg 1,4-dichlorobenzene (1,4-DB), based on tolerable concentrations in air, water,
daily intake, and acceptable daily intake for human toxicity.
Kg SO2 Eq Acidification Potential (AP) is expressed in terms of kg SO2 eq as a result of emitting acids to the atmosphere and subsequently depositing them in surface soils
and waters.
E The E stands for Exponent, which means the number of tens we multiply a number by.

Fig. 2. Comparison of various stages of the crude oil process chain on each impact category.

human health, photochemical oxidant formation, ozone depletion,
aquatic ecosystems, and fossil depletion (Fig. 2). The identified
impact categories describe the environmental issues related to the
product analyzed. The unit of obtained results was changed to a
common unit using unit conversion factors given by Owsianiak
et al. (2014) so that comparison with other literature can be done.
For crude oil extraction, the climate change and human health
impact potential (which is an indicator of global warming due to
GHG emissions) were 2.63E-5 kg CO2 eq. whereas, in the study
conducted by Restianti and Gheewala (2012) in Indonesia with a
production of 1 m3 of gasoline as a base, the GWP for crude oil
extraction was 7.24Eþ02 kg CO2 eq. Similarly, human toxicity po-
tential (impact of toxic substances on humans which is emitted in
the environment) for our study is 5.43E-3 g DB-eq and for
Indonesia, as reported by Restianti and Gheewala (2012) was
1.78Eþ04 g 1,4- DB-eq. The difference in result is due to the
geographical location and also each crude has different properties,
different methods of extraction, and GHG emissions.
4.1.2. Crude oil refining
For crude oil refining industries, it was difficult to distinguish
the production process into various sub-processes, due to its
extreme complexity and connections between the streams
(Tehrani, 2007), so the refinery process was not categorized into a
5
sub process. In crude oil refining, the main environmental impact is
because of the use of Heavy Fuel Oils (HFO’s). HFO’s are generally
used in place of distillates which is much cheaper as compared to
distillates. It is more polluting as compared to diesel or gasoline. It
mainly contributes to the impact categories particulate matter
formation, terrestrial acidification, freshwater eutrophication,
freshwater eco-toxicity, and fossil fuel depletion (Fig. 2). For crude
oil refining, climate change and human health is 2.86E-9 g CO2 eq
and GWP was 1.85Eþ03 g CO2 eq for crude oil refining in Indonesia
as studied by Restianti and Gheewala (2012). Morales et al. (2015)
performed LCA of gasoline production in Chile and concluded
that the majority of emissions were from the refining process and
climate change was identified as the major impact category as a
consequence of such refining and combustion activities. It showed
the same result as the present study.
4.1.3. Transportation
Finished fuel is generally transported by three modes, i.e., road
(oil tankers), rail (rail wagon), and pipeline. In our results, it was
found that pipeline is the cleanest mode, followed by rail and road.
The rail and road transportation is generally diesel-powered and
has the highest impacts on the environment, whereas pipeline
mode decreases the dependency on trucks and railways and can
reduce environmental strains, however, the initial cost is high but
S. Shrivastava and S. Unnikrishnan
that is very unimportant because if the oil has a standard desti-
nation than it reduces transportation cost The main impact cate-
gory identifies are climate change human health, human toxicity,
photochemical oxidation, particulate matter formation, and marine
ecotoxicity (Fig. 2). This is particularly significant as transport is one
aspect common to all the stages in fuel production. But the delivery
of crude oil via pipelines was identified as the main source causing
the mineral depletion potential (Morales et al., 2015). For the
transportation phase, the climate change and human health po-
tential for our study is 1.55Eþ6 g CO2 eq and in a study by Restianti
and Gheewala, the GWP is 5.98Eþ01 g CO2 eq. The Ozone Depletion
potential was 1.25Eþ3 g SO2 eq and Restianti and Gheewala (2012)
it was found to be 1.17Eþ00 g SO2 eq which is much lower than our
study. This difference is mostly because of the usage of conven-
tional fuels for the transportation of fuels. Cavalett et al. (2012)
compared the life cycle impact assessment methods for ethanol
and gasoline and reported that ethanol had a lower footprint than
gasoline in the main impact categories such as global warming,
fossil depletion, and ozone layer depletion. However, ethanol has
higher impacts on acidification, eutrophication, photochemical
oxidation, and agricultural land use categories.
4.1.4. Storage of fuels
The life cycle stages considered for storage were transportation,
storage, and dispatch. It was found that the maximum emission was
from the transportation phase. Various losses from the storage of
fuels cause environmental impacts. The impact categories identi-
fied were ionizing radiation, particulate matter formation, terres-
trial eco-toxicity, freshwater eco-toxicity, agriculture land
occupation, urban land occupation, and metal depletion (Fig. 3).
4.2. LCC results
Crude Oil Refining: The maximum life cycle cost is for the oil
refineries because it involves more complex operations and more
raw materials are used as compared to other stages. Based on
different types of sub costs categories it may be observed that the
maximum cost incurred was from the operation costs in the crude
oil process chain. Life cycle cost is also affected due to the capacity
of the unit, geographical location, type of crude oil, and trans-
portation method.
Finished Fuel Storage: For the fuel storage unit the total LCC was
mainly due to the direct cost and indirect cost. The various types of
Fig. 3. Comparison of various stages of Oil Storage phase.
6
Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124654
indirect costs incurred in storage terminals were client facilities,
insurance, finance, facilities to the third party, etc.
Transportation: The transportation phase is related to nearly all
the stages of the crude oil process chain. In the LCC calculations, we
have included the transportation phase from the refinery to storage
terminals and dispatch of products from storage terminals to fuel
stations. As per our LCA results, the maximum environmental
impact is through road transportation via oil tankers. Therefore
only road transportation was considered for the LCC study. The
maximum costing is from the direct cost which is mostly from the
use of conventional fuels for transportation. The results of various
cost categories are presented in Table 6.
4.3. S-LCA results
The main aim of performing S-LCA study was to evaluate the
social impacts of the crude oil process chain in India. The evaluation
results obtained are summarized in Table 7 through the SAM
approach. For a better understanding of the results, the graphic
format was used because it serves to visually express the infor-
mation (Fig. 4). It is clear from the results that the oil industry has
stepped up on the way to fulfill societal responsibility and to
maintain a strong relationship with its workers and consumers. The
results also emphasize that the companies involved in the study
need improvements in a few subcategories to enhance their social
responsibility and to fulfill the needs of the stakeholders in terms of
safety, health, awareness, and pay. There is a requirement of high
improvement in one subcategory, which is ‘Public commitment to
sustainability issues’ (Level C, Assessment value 2) (which refers to
the public participation regarding sustainable issues initiative) and
moderate improvements in other subcategories that include
‘working hours’, ‘Equal opportunity’, health and safety’, ‘feedback
mechanism’, ‘Consumer Privacy’ and ‘End-of-life responsibility’.
Prior to our knowledge, there is no S-LCA study on this sector in
India; therefore obtained results cannot be compared with other
studies. Although, similar studies from other countries in the
different sectors are available in academic literature (e.g. Pasara and
Gheewala, 2018; Lenzo et al., 2017; Petti et al., 2018), so the existing
results are compared with these sources. Pasara and Gheewala
(2018) performed S-LCA of the Thai sugar industry and reported
that the social subcategories that require critical improvement are
fair wages, health, and safety, water, and land rights. Lenzo et al.
(2017) did an S-LCA study of the textile industry in Italy through
S. Shrivastava and S. Unnikrishnan Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124654

Table 6
Cost impacts of crude oil process chain.

Cost Categories Stages of crude oil process chain

Crude Oil Refining Crude Oil storage Transportation by truck Dispatch of finished fuel through the truck

Direct Costs (₹/Metric Ton) 5.37E7 1.31E7 1.19E8 1.79E6

Indirect Costs (₹/Metric Ton) 4.7E7 3.45E6 1.29E8 1.72E2
Operation costs (₹/Metric Ton) 650 9.11E6 8.53E3 8.53E3
Maintenance cost (₹/Metric Ton) e e 5.24E3 2.63E3
Taxes and duties (₹/Metric Ton) 6.71E6 5.24E5 4.58E3 4.58E3

Table 7
Results of Subcategory Assessment method for S-LCA.

Stakeholder Category Subcategory Level Assessment

Workers Working Hour B 3

Child Labor A 4
Equal Opportunity/Discrimination B 3
Health and safety A 4
Fair Wages A 4
Consumers Health and Safety B 3
Feedback Mechanism B 3
Transparency A 4
End-of-Life Responsibility B 3
Society Public Commitments to Sustainability issue C 2
Contribution to Economic Development A 4
Technology Development A 4

sustainability (i.e., environmental, economical, and social), rather

than evaluating only one sustainability dimension. Therefore, the
obtained life cycle sustainability impact can be a more realistic and
reliable measure of sustainability.
The factors taken into consideration during framework devel-
opment were the environmental, economic, and social impacts
associated with each stage of crude oil production and sustain-
ability measures were suggested to ensure overall sustainability.
Integration between all sustainability aspects is important in
developing a framework (Mahmood et al., 2015).
The dimensions considered in developing the framework are-

i. Sustainability Impacts and Parameters

Fig. 4. Graphical representation of the social performance of different stakeholder Impact categories and the parameters for all the three di-
categories. mensions of sustainability (Environmental, Economic, and Social)
associated with each life cycle stage of the crude oil process chain
were identified from our study and it was used for the development
the SAM approach in which two stakeholder categories were
of the framework. Sustainability impacts identified for environ-
considered which are ‘Workers’ and ‘local community’. Results
mental assessment are climate change and human health, damage
showed that there is only one subcategory that obtained a “Level C00
to the ecosystem, fossil fuel depletion, particulate matter forma-
is “Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining”. Petti et al.
tion, ozone depletion, and aquatic ecotoxicity. For economic
(2016) have also used the SAM approach for S-LCA study of Ital-
assessment, the impacts identified are raw material costs, opera-
ian tomatoes and reported a range of values, between 2 and 3 (CeB)
tion costs, and energy costs and for social assessment the identified
for stakeholder category ‘consumer’ and mainly 3 (B) for the
impacts working hours, health and safety, fair wages, equal op-
stakeholder categories ‘local community’ and ‘worker’.
portunity for stakeholder ‘workers’, feedback mechanism, trans-
parency, health and safety for stakeholder ‘consumers’ and public
5. Proposed framework for LCSA of crude oil commitment for sustainability issues, technology development,
and economic development for ‘society’ stakeholder.
A framework is designed to better present the outcomes of this
ii. Sustainability Improvements
study. The framework helps in identifying the potential impacts
and suggests measures associated with the sustainability assess-
To achieve overall sustainability in the process chain, all the
ment of the crude oil process chain. This framework introduces a
systematic method that compares the sustainability aspects of the dimensions of sustainability must be encompassed. For this
improvement, measures have been suggested in the recommen-
crude oil process chain. The framework can also be used for com-
parison of sustainability aspects of different industries. The pro- dation section, based on the results obtained from the impact
assessment to attain the sustainability goals.
posed framework (Fig. 5) addresses each dimension of
7
S. Shrivastava and S. Unnikrishnan
Fig. 5. Proposed framework for LCSA of crude oil.
6. Recommendations
Recommendations have been provided for improvement for
each sustainability aspect based on the obtained results, which will
help industries in achieving the sustainability goals.
6.1. Environmental LCA
For a sustainable production process, the usage of solar and
wind power generation on offshore production facilities should be
maximized which will in turn minimize its use of fossil fuels and
therefore minimizing the environmental footprints (Halabi et al.,
2015). It is also recommended to use cleaner fuels for trans-
portation, which includes ethanol fuels which have less GHG
emissions, fossil depletion, and ozone layer depletion as compared
to gasoline (Luo et al., 2009; Cavalett et al., 2012). Apart from this,
transportation activities can be reduced by initiating greenfield
projects and adopting the latest fuel standards. As per the results of
our study transporting the finished fuels through the pipeline
mode will help in reducing the emissions. The major problem using
pipeline mode was corrosion which deteriorates the material and
can cause spillage. To address this issue the firms can adopt the
latest anti-corrosion technology such as EonCoat which prevents
corrosion from developing if applied only once (Carter, 2018). In the
oil refineries, the development of modeling tools to evaluate biofuel
blending scenarios, and implementing industry 4.0 will help in
improving dynamics, reducing workplace hazards, and increasing
production efficiency (Nguyen et al., 2020). Reducing vapor loss by
strengthening the vapor traps and vapor recovery systems will also
help in lowering the impacts. (Abdelmajeed et al., 2009).
6.2. Life cycle costing
Complementing revolutionary technologies with advanced ro-
botics, machinery, and automation, the industry can minimize its
carbon footprint without reducing production rates and making
smarter, cost-effective decisions. The overall reduction in the life
cycle costing can be done by reducing the operating costs and long-
term costs. This includes upgrading to the latest technologies such
as the Internet of Things (IoT), anti-corrosion technologies, and oil
and gas management software which can help in reducing
8
Journal of Cleaner Production 283 (2021) 124654
operation and maintenance costs by increasing productivity. The
cost of raw materials can also be reduced by introducing a circular
economy, which includes recycling of maximum raw materials
used in the supply chain. An increase in revenue through labor
productivity will also help in lowering the overall cost. Using bio-
fuels and ethanol for transportation may cost higher than con-
ventional fuels but it is profitable because of large subsidies given
and its positive impacts on the environment (Hill et al., 2006).
6.3. Social LCA
For stakeholder ‘workers’ the industries must ensure good
health and safety to their workers, provide proper training to them,
and giving fair wages. Stricter norms must be introduced for
contractual workers in the industries to be treated the same as
regular workers. For stakeholder ‘consumers’ the industries must
take feedback from their consumers at regular intervals and taking
proper action on the feedback. Awareness programs regarding
environmental issues must be arranged for consumers. For stake-
holder ‘society’ industries should help in various technology and
economic development and conducting awareness programs
regarding ‘sustainability issues’ for society.
7. Conclusion
The integration of all three pillars of sustainability with the In-
dian oil sector is a first attempt towards improving the sustainable
performance of the supply chain. By performing the LCSA we have
identified the stages with a high environmental impact, highest life
cycle cost, and highest social impact. According to our study, the
majority of emissions are from the oil refining process and trans-
portation phase. Transportation causes a serious threat to the
environment since it is used in each stage of the crude oil process.
In the environmental life cycle costing, oil refineries incur the
maximum cost. In the comparison of various cost categories of the
oil refining stage, the raw material consumption adds up to the
highest cost, which must be reduced to lower the overall operation
costs. While studying the social aspect, it was observed that the
industries respect the various laws and acts and have established a
strong relationship with their various stakeholders. However, the
scope for high improvement was observed in one subcategory, i.e.,
S. Shrivastava and S. Unnikrishnan
‘Public commitment to sustainability issues.’ Also, the scope for
moderate improvement in other subcategories such as ‘working
hours’, ‘equal opportunity’, health and safety’, ‘feedback mecha-
nism’, and ‘end-of-life responsibility’ was observed.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Shilpi Shrivastava: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal
analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing - original draft.
Seema Unnikrishnan: Software, Validation, Resources, Writing -
review & editing, Supervision, Project administration.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare the following financial interests/personal
relationships which may be considered as potential competing
interests: Shilpi Shrivastava Seema Unnikrishnan.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.124654.
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