Eco-efficiency Evaluation of Iran's Oil Refineries: using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)

Due to increasing concerns on environmental problems in current era، this study assesses the eco-efficiency of oil refineries. The oil refineries play essential role in the national economy in one hand، and cause environmental pollution due to high fossil fuel consumption and Co2 emissions in the other hand. Eco-efficiency is calculated using Windeap software، DEA output-oriented method، and inclusion of undesirable outputs. The results suggest that Bandar Abbas Oil Refining Company is the most efficient refinery over the 2003-2009، and growth rates of refineries eco-efficiency are positive. The results of Tobit regression show that fuel oil and gasoil have negative effects on the eco-efficiency، however natural gas، refinery gases، and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) have positive effects on the eco-efficiency. On the other hand، if a refinery refines crude oil slightly more than nominal capacity rate، refinery eco-efficiency will be further decreased.