China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) announced the official launch of the country’s first offshore carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) project at the Enping 15-1 platform in the Pearl River Mouth Basin on May 22, marking a significant breakthrough in China’s offshore carbon management capabilities.
The Enping 15-1 platform is currently the largest offshore crude oil production platform in Asia. At peak capacity, the oilfields developed by the platform produce more than 7,500 tons of crude oil per day. The Enping 15-1 oilfield contains high concentrations of carbon dioxide, which, under conventional development models, would be extracted alongside the crude oil, leading to corrosion of offshore facilities and undersea pipelines, as well as increased carbon dioxide emissions.
The offshore CCUS project addresses these challenges through a full-process technology chain. This process converts the carbon dioxide co-produced during oil extraction into a supercritical state and injects it into subsurface reservoirs at depths between 1,200 and 1,600 meters, at a rate of 8 tons per hour.
The Enping 15-1 platform integrates a range of functional modules, including drilling, remote unmanned operation, self-contained power generation and networked electricity supply, and integrated oil-gas-water treatment. To achieve the dual goals of “sequestration + enhanced oil recovery,” key equipment such as carbon dioxide compressors, gas processing units, and cooling systems were added to the platform. This has led to the establishment of China’s first complete offshore CCUS engineering equipment system, with a 100 percent domestic equipment localization rate.
The successful commissioning of the project represents a full-chain upgrade in China’s offshore CCUS technological capabilities. Over the next decade, it is expected to inject over 1 million tons of carbon dioxide back into the subsurface and contribute to an additional 200,000 tons of crude oil output, playing a vital role in safeguarding national energy security and advancing China’s dual carbon goals of peaking carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality.
(Executive editor: Cui Feng)
