What does the future of refineries look like?

Petroleum industry What does the future of refineries look like? As of: October 24, 2026 • 3:06 a.m

Germany's refineries are facing a fundamental change: away from fossil raw materials and towards more climate-friendly alternatives. Economics Minister Reiche wants to present a strategy for this. But experts are skeptical.

The challenge could hardly be greater: Today, people in Germany are still dependent on crude oil products from refineries such as gasoline, diesel or kerosene. At the same time, Germany has committed to becoming climate neutral by 2045 and thus phasing out the use of coal, oil and gas.

What does this mean for the future of refineries? And how does Federal Minister of Economics Katherina Reiche (CDU) want to do justice to security of supply on the one hand and climate protection on the other? The minister has now met in Berlin with representatives of the oil industry, among others, because she plans to develop a strategy for the refineries in the coming months.

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At the beginning of her speech, Reiche praised the industry: "You hear the opposite in the press every day, but I want to tell you that we really value the work and the security of supply that comes from the refineries." Refineries turned crude oil into products that fueled the economy and everyday life, Reiche said.

At eleven locations in Germany, they produce the majority of the fuel required for road, shipping and air transport. They also supply raw materials for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, which use them to make plastics and medicines, among other things. The minister emphasized that refineries are part of the strategic infrastructure.

Reiche demands that the refineries now have to gradually convert their facilities in order to increasingly meet demand from sustainable rather than fossil sources. In the future, biogenic fuels - i.e. fuels made from biomass such as plants or used cooking oils - and synthetic aviation fuel could also be produced in the refineries. However, this would require billions of euros in investments.

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However, the Green Party's energy policy spokesman, Michael Kellner, is skeptical that the oil industry has an interest in this. The good thing, according to Kellner, is that the rich oil companies have enough money for the necessary investments. But the Green politician says they shy away from this because it is more convenient for them to continue burning oil and thus the climate.

The petroleum industry denies this, but at the same time the general manager of its fuels and energy trade association, Christian Küchen, complains about the climate protection requirements within the European Union. In principle, companies in the EU have to buy pollution rights as part of so-called emissions trading if they cause greenhouse gases that are harmful to the climate.

The German oil industry sees this as a competitive disadvantage internationally. This type of CO2 pricing does not exist in other regions of the world; emissions trading currently acts like a punitive tax that only European locations have, association representative Küchen tells the ARD capital studio.

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Federal Economics Minister Reiche supports the mineral oil industry and would like to ensure that emissions trading does not place too much of a burden on refineries. She is also campaigning for another climate protection rule - the so-called methane regulation - to be postponed. The regulation is intended to ensure that fewer large amounts of the climate-damaging greenhouse gas methane escape from the oil and gas industry.

If the EU methane regulation were implemented in this way, it would lead to the closure of local refineries, said Reiche. Climate protection is important, but replacing domestic production with imports does not protect the climate. “In the end, we are shifting emissions, we are shifting value creation and we are shifting security to other places in the world,” says the CDU minister.

Green politician Kellner accuses Reiche of trying to save the fossil business model, otherwise she would not try to abolish the methane regulation and CO2 trading. “This is a catastrophe for climate protection,” explains Kellner.

Economist Claudia Kemfert from the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) also demands that the refinery strategy must be a transformation strategy, not a guarantee of the continued existence of fossil business models. In principle, refineries could play an important role in the future for sustainable aviation fuels, hydrogen and non-fossil raw materials, according to Kemfert.

However, synthetic fuels are not necessarily produced by today's well-known refinery operators, explains the energy expert. New companies could also assert themselves here, so existing locations would have to compete.

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The refineries are currently under considerable pressure, explains the president and scientific director of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, Manfred Fishick, not only from restrictions in global crude oil trade, but also from the expected falling demand.

Calculations assumed that the demand for petroleum products could fall to just twenty percent of today's level by 2045, said Brüderfische. Then there would be the challenge of having to produce the remaining products in a climate-neutral way, which can only be achieved through significant changes to the product and raw material range, writes the energy expert.

Nevertheless,fischedick sees a future for the refineries, even if their number is expected to decline. At the same time, however, he points out that production capacities for sustainable synthetic aviation fuels - so-called eSAF - are currently being developed in China - also with a view to future sales prospects in Europe.

In any case, Federal Economics Minister Reiche would like to start with various working groups at the end of November and thus develop a strategy for the future of the refineries together with the oil industry, industry, unions, dealers, federal states and the ministries involved.

What exactly that looks like and whether it actually helps the refineries and the climate in the end will be shown by the results that the minister expects for the first quarter of next year. The federal government should ultimately decide on its strategy on this basis.

This topic in the program: BR24 Radio | News | Oct 23, 2026 | 4:51 p.m