Crude Oil Carbon Intensity Framework

Crude oil supplies approximately 30% of global primary energy and underpins over 90% of transport energy consumption, including road freight, aviation, and maritime shipping. At roughly 100 million barrels per day, crude oil is a structural driver of inflation, energy security, and trade balances worldwide.

The emissions profile of oil is asymmetric across its value chain. Approximately 70% of lifecycle emissions occur at combustion, but upstream production emissions are both material and highly variable across geographies, operators, and production methods. The average upstream barrel emits 16–20 kg CO₂e, yet best-in-class assets operate below 5–10 kg CO₂e. If all producers converged toward best-in-class intensity, the IEA estimates operational emissions could fall by ~60% by 2030, eliminating roughly 3 Gt CO₂e/year from a current base of 5.1 Gt (IEA, 2023).

Sylvera's framework assigns carbon intensity (CI) values to individual crude streams worldwide, shifting from aggregate country-level benchmarks to a continuous, stream-specific scale. 

Beyond scoring, the framework supports mechanism eligibility assessment — enabling producers, refiners, and buyers to identify which streams qualify under CORSIA, LCFS, and emerging low-carbon fuel standards. By connecting upstream CI to downstream policy pathways, the framework makes carbon data directly actionable across the value chain.

Our Approach 

We calculate CI values by combining open-source databases with manual data extraction. Our model integrates commodity-specific expertise with LCA principles and leading emission factor databases to provide representative modelling pathways based on best available data.

Understanding the Score 

Each assessment produces a CI value (gCO₂e/MJ of crude oil), accompanied by a confidence score (Very High to Very Low) reflecting the completeness of available field and facility data and the representativeness of emission factors used.