China - September 30, 2024

Carbon capture projects fuel China's green energy transition

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To help reach its goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, China's power and oil and gas industries are focusing on projects to capture, store and utilize carbon dioxide.

They're doing this on two fronts: by upgrading existing facilities to reduce CO2 emissions, and by capturing and storing CO2 that's released during oil and gas or energy production.

China's first offshore million-ton carbon storage project recently announced that more than 50 million cubic meters of CO2 have been safely stored beneath the South China Sea.

China National Offshore Oil Corporation launched the project last year at an oil platform about 200 kilometers off the southwest coast of Shenzhen City.

CNOOC says they capture 120,000 cubic meters of CO2 daily, injecting it into a location about 800 meters below the seabed.

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Yue Zongling, Production manager, Enping Oilfield of China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) Shenzhen Branch:

"Like the complex human organ system, the entire CO2 storage system consists of six major systems and 28 individual pieces of equipment, and it has operated safely for over 10,000 hours."

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Meanwhile, at the country's largest land oilfield, Daqing in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, staff are both capturing and utilizing carbon dioxide.

Here CO2 is separated from natural gas, then liquified.

It's also injected into crude oil, which reduces the oil's viscosity and boosts production.

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Chen Chao, Deputy manager, Daqing Oilfield Natural Gas Branch:

"Carbon dioxide mixed in natural gas is a harmful emission, because it will significantly increase carbon emission during the combustion of natural gas. We have established lots of equipment to purify gas and liquify CO2. So far, Daqing Oilfield has captured over 1.3 million tons of carbon dioxide, an equivalent of CO2 exhaled by at least 3.4 million people in a year."

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And at one of China Energy's coal-fired power plants in east China's Taizhou City, 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide are captured annually.

The captured CO2 is used by companies in dry-ice manufacturing, welding and high-tech machinery cleaning.

It's now Asia's largest carbon capture, utilization and storage project for coal-fired power plants.

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