Xi inspects carbon reduction tech lab
Shengli oil project to cut CO2 emissions by 1m tons a year
Chinese President Xi Jinping inspected the Shengli Oilfield in Dongying, East China’s Shandong Province on Thursday, a city born with an oilfield.
But the city is witnessing huge changes amid China’s pursuit of carbon neutrality, with more technology and green development in the way oil is extracted, which shows that technology is playing a more important role in China’s efforts on carbon reduction.
Xi visited a research institute, founded in 1964, which has a research and development center for shale oil, and a laboratory for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), an important emissions reduction technology crucial to realizing the carbon neutrality goal, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Friday.
The R&D center is doing a “CT” for the shale which can pinpoint where the crude oil is hidden, and the application of CCUS technology in oilfields focuses on injecting captured carbon dioxide (CO2) into reservoirs, which can help pump up oil.
Analysts said the visit will boost and accelerate the development of CCUS technology in China, which can be applied to the energy system. CCUS will play an indispensable part in realizing carbon neutrality and reaching net zero.
CCUS technology is crucial to reducing carbon emissions and is indispensable to the carbon neutrality goal, Wang Jun, director of Carbon Asset Management of Sichuan Yongxiang Company, said on Friday.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the discovery of an oilfield in Dongying, which was later named Shengli Oilfield.
Xi on Thursday said China, as a manufacturing powerhouse, must enhance self-reliance in energy amid efforts to develop the real economy.
The Shengli Oilfield is home to China’s first CCUS project above the 1 million ton level. Analysts said it’s among the largest CCUS projects in the world.
Such a project can help reduce CO2 emissions by 1 million tons a year, which is equivalent to planting 9 million trees and shutting down 600,000 passenger cars a year.
Analysts also said the development of CCUS can boost the construction of other clean energy plants in Shandong, and also in the Yellow River basin, where clean energy construction is less developed compared to other regions in China.
Wind, water and tidal power, and other forms of power generation are all clean energy sources, which the Yellow River basin includes, Sheng Honglei, an associate manager of CyberInsight New Energy Technology Company, said on Friday.
“The Yellow River basin is a suitable region for the distribution of new and clean energy. Gansu Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region have enough wind to develop wind power, but less deployed with wind generation plants,” Sheng said.