The Future of Refining: Survive, Thrive, or Retreat?

For decades, refineries have played a clear role in the energy and chemical system: converting crude oil into fuels, petrochemical feedstocks, and other essential products. That role is now being challenged from multiple directions. Demand for core products declines, newer integrated assets erode competitiveness, crude supply becomes less reliable, energy costs make production uneconomic, and carbon costs undermine the license to operate. For refinery majors, the question is no longer only how to optimize today’s asset base, but how to prepare for multiple futures in which the traditional refinery model comes under structural pressure.

This webinar introduces a scenario-based framework for evaluating the strategic options available to refinery majors. We examine how companies can respond across five potential disruptions through three strategic postures: survive, thrive, or retreat. The session maps these postures to enabling technology pathways — from operational efficiency and crude flexibility to biorefining, petrochemicals integration, electrified refining, carbon utilization, and asset repurposing — and highlights how leaders can distinguish no-regret technology options from more situational bets.