CNOOC commissions China’s first offshore CCS project, filling a gap and helping the country with its emission goals
- The CCS project is part of the Enping 15-1 oilfield, Asia’s largest offshore oil production platform located in the Pearl River Mouth Basin
- The operation of the project will support CNOOC’s efforts to increase reserves and help it to pursue green and low-carbon development
China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) has commissioned what it called the country’s first offshore carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration project, “filling the gap” in China’s offshore carbon storage technology, the company said on Thursday.
The CCS project is part of the Enping 15-1 oilfield, Asia’s largest offshore oil production platform located in the Pearl River Mouth Basin, about 190 kilometres southwest of Hong Kong. It achieves zero carbon emissions by capturing and processing the large volume of carbon dioxide produced from the oilfield and injecting the greenhouse gas into an inverted dome-shaped saline water layer at a depth of around 800 metres under the seabed for long-term storage, according to CNOOC.
The project can store about 300,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year and more than 1.5 million tonnes in total, which is equivalent to planting nearly 14 million trees, according to CNOOC, China’s largest offshore oil and gas producer.
The operation of the project will support CNOOC’s efforts to increase reserves and help it to pursue green and low-carbon development, and “fills the gap in China’s offshore carbon storage technology”, according to the company in a statement on Thursday.
“The successful commissioning of the project demonstrates that CNOOC Limited has a complete set of technology and systems for the capturing, processing, injection, sequestration and monitoring of carbon dioxide at offshore oil and gas fields,” the company said.
As the world is on track for an expected temperature overshoot by reaching 2.7 degrees of global warming by 2100, significantly higher than the 1.5 degrees goal set by the Paris Agreement, the world is looking to technologies such as carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) to contain surging global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
There were 61 new CCS facilities added to the project pipeline in 2022, meaning global CCS capacity under development has increased to 244 million tonnes per annum (mtpa), a 44 per cent year-on-year increase, according to a report released by climate think tank the Global CCS Institute last October.
China, the world’s largest GHG emitter, has also attached great importance to the country’s CCS development to support its goals of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2060.
Major state-owned energy companies are leading project development. China’s first integrated million-tonne CCUS project, developed by Sinopec, came into full operation at the end of August 2022. Last June, ExxonMobil, Shell and CNOOC also signed an agreement with Guangdong’s provincial government to evaluate a world-scale hub project in Daya Bay Petrochemical Industry Park.
According to the Global CCS Institute, CCUS is expected to play a crucial role under China’s carbon neutrality goals, and is estimated to account for reductions of 0.6 to 1.45 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year by 2050 and 1 to 1.82 billion tonnes per year by 2060 in the country.
“CNOOC Limited will continue its R&D activities, to promote the green development of offshore oilfields, and explore ‘offshore storage of onshore carbon’ to provide a new solution of carbon reduction for the high-emitting enterprises in coastal areas,” said CNOOC’s Zhou.
