China has commenced drilling its first offshore Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) well at the Enping 15-1 platform in the Pearl River Mouth Basin.
Over the next decade, the project is expected to inject more than one million tons of carbon dioxide into subsea geological formations while enhancing oil recovery and increasing crude oil production.
The Enping 15-1 platform, the largest offshore crude oil production platform in Asia, is situated in waters approximately 90 meters deep. The oilfield contains a high concentration of carbon dioxide, which, under conventional extraction methods, would be released alongside crude oil, causing equipment corrosion and increasing carbon dioxide emissions. The CCUS project will address these challenges by enabling enhanced oil recovery while promoting a sustainable, low-carbon development model.
In June 2023, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) launched China’s first offshore carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration project at Enping 15-1 oilfield, which has since operated safely for nearly 13,000 hours, reinjecting over 180,000 tons of carbon dioxide.
This newly launched project further optimizes carbon dioxide utilization, advancing offshore CCS technology towards full CCUS applications while achieving both increased oil production and reduced carbon emissions.
CCUS has emerged as a key technology for low-carbon, efficient fossil energy development and a strategic priority in the global energy sector. The CCUS project will capture, purify, and pressurize carbon dioxide generated during oilfield operations before reinjecting it into subsurface reservoirs through a dedicated CCUS well.
Since late 2023, CNOOC has conducted extensive research on CCUS applications at the Enping 15-1 oilfield, identifying four optimal “golden layers” for carbon dioxide injection, located 1,200 to 1,600 meters underground and 2.4 kilometers from the Enping 15-1 platform. Each injection well covers a reservoir holding over 7.5 million tons of crude oil, significantly improving the utilization of lower-grade resources.
The newly drilled CCUS well, with a designed depth of 3,243 meters, incorporates an innovative approach that repurposes existing wells for zonal gas injection. CNOOC has independently developed multiple proprietary technologies to ensure wellbore stability. Additionally, an integrated monitoring and control system has been designed to enable precise, real-time tracking of injection volumes and gas-tightness, maximizing the efficiency of oil recovery.
(Executive editor: Wang Ruoting)
