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As we work to meet our 2025 sustainability goals, we find that measuring, managing, and reducing our energy intensity helps to limit environmental impacts while lowering operating costs.
This year, our global energy intensity, measured in gigajoules (GJ) of energy used per metric ton (t) of product sales, increased. Our total energy intensity increased to 17.12 GJ per ton from 16.86 GJ per ton in 2017. This marks a 1.6 percent increase from 2017 and a 6.2 percent reduction from our baseline year of 2010.
At our Sadaf manufacturing affiliate, a furnace-cleaning project led to a super-heater efficiency improvement up to 3.5 percent, saving 315,000 GJ of energy each year while boosting production capabilities. Petrokemya also achieved significant savings by cleaning three liquid and two gas-cracking furnaces; as a result, the facility saves 460,000 GJ of energy annually.
Low-temperature waste heat that is lost to the environment through air or water is a considerable share of the energy used in our industry. To exploit this potential energy source, our Saudi Kayan affiliate installed a new vapor-absorption chiller to recover and reuse waste heat, reducing energy use by 144,000 GJ per year.
In Cartagena, Spain, we implemented a steam-trap management system that saves approximately 300,000 GJ of energy per year.
By optimizing the evaporator at our Sharq affiliate’s ethylene-glycol plant, we can save 800,000 GJ each year, saving US$1.8 million in operating costs.
In addition to these large projects, SABIC sites around the world completed numerous routine improvements that also contributed to energy-intensity improvements.