CNPC ramps up efforts with pledge to cut emissions

China National Petroleum Corp, the nation’s largest oil and gas producer, has pledged to cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 by 25 percent compared with 2015 to further increase its clean energy capacity.

It has also vowed to increase its share of natural gas production capacity to 55 percent of the company’s total energy production capacity in the country, through increasing its output of natural gas, coal bed gas and research and development into combustible ice.

As a major natural gas supplier in the country, the company saw its domestic natural gas sales exceed 151.8 billion cubic meters in 2017, which has helped meet the nation’s growing demand for natural gas, under a policy to replace coal to combat air pollution.

Xu Wenrong, deputy general manager of CNPC, said the energy behemoth will continuously push forward exploration of unconventional natural gas — including tight gas, shale gas and coal bed gas — while further exploring renewable energy sources including geothermal heating, hydrogen energy and biomass energy to meet the increasing demand for cleaner and high-quality fuel.

CNPC has built 23 of China’s 25 gas storage facilities, and it will start building two more underground natural gas storage sites in southwestern China at a total cost of 5.3 billion yuan ($825.7 million).

The two underground storage sites will ensure combined annual supply of 1.28 billion cubic meters of gas on completion in 2022, in Tongluoxia and Huangcaoxia in Chongqing.

The company supplied a record 7.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas during last winter’s gas shortage from its underground storage facilities, 21 percent more than in 2016, to ease the pressure of peak gas demand in winter.

It also plans to supply 700 million cubic meters more this winter than 2017.

The company has invested more than 10 billion yuan in emission reduction and green refinery so far, according to Xu, with all its waste water and waste exhaust gas within emission standards.

CNPC is also looking at China’s increasing demand for liquefied natural gas and has been gearing up to meet the growth in LNG trucking in the country.

It has signed two long-term contracts with Houstonbased Cheniere Energy for LNG imports from Sabine Pass and a new LNG facility that is under construction on the Gulf of Mexico, before which it also participated in the Yamal LNG project with Novatek, Russia’s independent natural gas producer, to ensure that China has access to more than four million tons of LNG each year when the project is in full operation.