A 1 million-metric ton carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) project, the country's first and largest, was completed and started operation on Aug 25, according to China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group).
The project is expected to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions by one million tons, an equivalence to planting nearly 9 million trees.
CCUS is seen as an effective way to realize carbon neutrality and can help improve development and utilization of low-grade petroleum and provide support to national energy security.
Consisting of a carbon capture section operated by Sinopec Qilu Petrochemical Company and a carbon dioxide utilization and storage section at Sinopec Shengli Oilfield, the CCUS project is expected to help produce more than 200,000 tons of crude annually based on captured carbon dioxide.
Sinopec Group developed a series of technologies during construction of the project. Yang Yong, deputy-general-manager of Sinopec Shengli Oilfield, explained that the technologies relate to low-cost carbon capture, safe pipeline transmission, low-temperature airtight gas injection, highly-efficient oil distribution and storage design, capture and transmission treatment and recycling use, and oil distribution and storage environment monitoring, and thus cover the entire industrial chain of the project.
He added that the company has applied for more than 20 patents since construction of the project.
As for the oil distribution and storage process, the company independently developed the country's first complete airtight highly-efficient injection facility and set up 500 monitoring points to closely supervise indices of water, soil and air and guarantee zero-carbon dioxide emission.
Taking into account of features of the low permeability reservoir, the company innovated high-pressure mixed-phase carbon dioxide-based oil distribution and storage technology, improving the oil distribution rate by 28 percent.
Chen Jun, manager of the CCUS project, said that the breakthroughs made at the project are expected to model the development of similar geological reserves with output of more than one million tons of crude.
Construction of a 100-kilometer carbon dioxide transmission pipeline to support the CCUS project has also been underway, which is the first of its kind in the country.
Experts say that Sinopec Group has built a large-scale CCUS demonstration model covering the full industrial chain that can support its refinery plants and oilfield carbon storage. It has provided a solution to carbon reduction for the industry.
Operation of Sinopec Group's CCUS project marks that China's CCUS industry has entered mature commercial operation.
(Executive editor: Wang Ruoting)
